Out Of My Mind
by Unique .F
Summary: What she didn't know was that her win was his loss. She didn't know her win meant he should die. She didn't know the Labyrinth's devotion to her king. She didn't know that, and what she didn't know, could possibly change both of them forever.
1. I'll Be There For You,

_Chapter 1, I'll Be There For You, As The World Falls Down_

Exhausted, I flopped, the fifteen year old Champion of the Labyrinth, Defeater of the Goblin King and Friend of Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus and the rest of the Labyrinth crew, collapsed on my bed, yawning prodigiously. I was incessantly weary all of a sudden, for no reason at all. A headache throbbed in my temples.

_Well, _I thought smugly, _I should be tired after running- and beating- the Labyrinth. _

Yawning, I pulled my shoes off and changed into pyjamas, promising myself a good shower in the morning. A wave of tiredness swept over me, and I staggered.

_Whoa..._Fuzziness built up behind my eyes and I stumbled. My eyelids grew heavy.

Giving in, I let myself be swept away by the wave of abnormally strong tiredness...and into the realm of dreams.

"_NO!" I howled helplessly at the uncaring sky, clenching my fists until my nails pierced my gloves and skin, making silvery blood dribble onto the cold floor. _

_Anguish pounded my body, ripping carelessly through my heart. Her eyes were so cruel. So helplessly, needlessly, innocently cruel. Everything about her was cruel. _

_The way she allowed me close enough for a glimpse of what could be, but then pushed me away, torturing my heart and soul. The way she would instantly forgive the most horrific of trespassers, yet would not bear the thought of forgiving me when I had done nothing but what she had asked. The way she gave me hope and joy, and yes, love, but then tore it away from me and threw it in my face. _

_I wanted to make her pay. I wanted her to beg, defeated at my feet. I wanted to break her, to have the satisfaction of hearing her submittal._

_But most of all, I wanted to be with her. Call her my queen and kiss her till she passed out. I wanted her to plead at my feet to let her back with me, where she belonged._

_How I hated her. She was young, stupid, naive, careless. She expected heights I'd never had to reach for. She wanted everything but was too young to appreciate it. _

_But how I loved her so. Loved her for not giving in even when I offered everything she secretly wanted- myself- to her, loved her for having the strength to defy me. I'd met my match, and while that caused me unbearable agony it caused me also enormous pride. _

_Those fool humans had made a ridiculous job of nurturing her. I wanted to be able to hold her in my arms and stroke that soft chocolate brown hair, whispering words of comfort in her ear. Like a father, like the father who she'd never had. _

_I wanted to be her lover, too. I wanted to be able to wake up in the morning and see her next to me. I wanted to be able to feel the pride and love swelling in my chest on our wedding day. I wanted to lavish everything I had on her, anything and everything I had ever known or possessed._

_We always want what we can't have._

_I knelt, my tears and my heartbreak my only companions, surrounded by crystalline shards. I, the cruel, cold fae with a heart of stone and trickster's words, wept._

_I was surrounded by the broken fragments of the Escher Room her subconscious had created. I still wore my white feathered cape and the clothes I had worn for her last. She never even bothered to complement me on my dressing, but then Sarah was ignorant of fae rules and courtesy._

_Sarah. By the gods old and new, her name hurt so much. _Sarah. _So lyrical, so beautiful, so ironic. Funny that _sarh _meant 'princess' in my language. I would've made her a queen. Princess was too lowly a title for one such as her, my beautiful precious thing._

_My precious queen. Oh, but she wasn't mine, was she? I didn't have any power over her. Not even her dreams. _

_That was the barb that stung the most. The power of words in the Underground was tremendous. I was barred from her presence, lest she should specifically call me to her, and even then I still couldn't even touch her. _

_Love coiled around my heart, as heartbreak ripped through my soul. Weariness of ancient life overcame me and I fell on my face, uncaring, unknowing, alone in my depression. _

_The only thing I'd ever wanted had rejected me. I was worthless. Unwanted and unneeded. My existence was a stain on the world. I wanted to kill myself. _

_. I could almost hear her whispering my name. I could almost pretend, for a moment, that she wanted me with her. I could almost pretend._

_Almost._

_Pain literally sawed through my soul. How was I to live, forever, bereft of even watching her grow older, older, and die? How was I to possibly live with such a gaping chasm struck through my chest? I'd never believed in heartbreak. I just thought people were being melodramatic, but I could actually feel my heart ripping. Every beat it made sent an eye-watering wave of pain through my injured body._

_My world had fallen down, and no one was there for _me.

**I'm tearing up- give me a sec...**

**Ok, I'm alright now. Sorry...How do you like it? Jareth is heartbroken and Sarah is mysteriously bone-tired. It was just that poignant, plantive last line...**


	2. Abnormal Tiredness Strikes Again

_Chapter 2, Abnormal Tiredness Strikes Again_

When I woke, I felt even worse than when I had fallen asleep. My head pounded unevenly, as if a herd of rhinos had randomly stampeded through my poor skull. Tiredness dogged my limbs, and I gave in to the desire to just...lie there and sleep...

_Weak. I'm so weak, why am I so weak? I reached helplessly towards the doors of my chambers, pathetic tears dribbling from my eyes uncontrollably. My cry for help was just a choked gargle. The muscles in my arm jerked and gave out, making my unspoken plea thud to the cold, cold floor._

_Am I dying? I don't want to die. I don't want to die now. There's so much I haven't done. So many experiences I ignored, disdained, how I regretted these things now...I haven't had the chance to hold a baby, my baby, instead of someone else's discarded child... I haven't had- No! I don't want to die! I wanted to die yesterday, yesterday, when she left...So bright, so vibrant, she left my colourless world dim..._

_Desperately I reached for the Labyrinth, but my strength gave out and failed halfway. The Labyrinth crossed the last few mental metres and cradled my mind in its own enormous psyche, emitting comfort. I groped for strength, trying to draw on its power as I had done many times before, but my way was barred._

_Betrayal! The Labyrinth had betrayed me! I was dying. I didn't want to die. I could feel the magic and essence being sucked out of me like a...like a squashed peach. _

_Panic, from the Labyrinth, as I mustered my flagging defences and temporarily holed up the gaping chasm my magic was fleeing down. It would not last, but at least I would live a few moments longer._

_(())_

_Sarah took me into her arms, running her hands through my hair and kissing my lips softly. Her warm body snuggled into my own, and I put my arm around her, rubbing her back gently. She sighed deeply, her dark hair splaying over our shoulders._

"_I love you, "she whispered. "I love you."_

_I froze. This isn't real. My heart tore and I shoved her away, knowing it to be farce. Someone had sensed my love for her and planted that image in my mind to distract me while they stole my power. I fought back, and cracks began to appear, on the cushions of the lush bed we were lying on, in the dusky sandstone walls._

_Sarah yelped in terror, clinging to me fearfully. "No! Jareth- don't go!"_

_I paused for a moment, shocked. My subconscious could play such tricks with me...It was as if she were crying my name truly. _

"_Don't leave me here!" she gibbered helplessly, holding me tight, "Please, don't leave me alone! I don't want to be alone! I'm so afraid..."_

_My heart stuttered and stopped. "You're not real," I explained gently._

"_I am!" She cried, her green eyes flashing with fury. Her beautiful, flashing eyes! How could I have remembered them so clearly, so perfectly? Even the tiny dashes of hazel brown, flecked ever so lightly with gold in her green eyes..._

"_No, you're not. You're just a projection of my subconscious. I have the real you waiting for me." I lied softly. Why did it hurt so much, to lie to her? _

"_No! I am real!" She gasped, doubt beginning to shine in her glorious jade eyes. My soul was tortured by my own cruel words._

"_Don't go..."_

_With one last push, I shattered the image around me._

_(())_

_I was back, I was back in my body again. The Labyrinth was in my mind, frantic. It pushed images of Sarah down on me, trying to distract me. I fought back bitterly, knowing it was a losing fight and yet wanting to save as much of my magic- my inner essence, of _me-_ as possible. It pleaded for my trust, wanting me to accept what it was doing, let it govern me and take care of me._

_So you can drain the power from me? I retorted. I had been betrayed by the one thing I loved and cherished more than the stars and sun their selves, excepting my Sarah. _

_It seemed no one wanted me around anymore._

_(())_

"_Jareth!" Sarah screamed, clinging to me. I held her tightly, burying my face in her hair, reassuring her with soft words of comfort._

"_You came back," she gasped, awed, "You came back for me. I love you; I love you so much...I knew you wouldn't leave me here."_

_Guilt tore at my heart, and sternly I reminded myself she wasn't real, that she was just a projection of my subconscious._

_And the last thing I saw before darkness overwhelmed me was her beautiful, devastating green eyes. _

A knock on the door woke me from my restless sleep. I bolted upright, sweat sheening my brow.

"Sarah!" Karen's fist drumming against the door, matching the beat of my racing heart.

I groaned, my migraine had not gone down in the slightest. The door opened and a worried looking Karen spilled forth, fluttering and fussing.

I let my head thump back against the pillow, and moaned softly, "Just tired."

"You don't look just tired, honey. Are you sure you're OK?" Karen questioned.

Feeling as if I were underneath the Spanish Inquisition, I nodded and whispered in a brittle, dry voice, "I went to bed with this horrible headache. I woke up and its worse."

Immediately Karen went quiet. In a low, quiet voice she asked considerately, "Would you like me to get you some Paracetomol?"

"Yes please," I replied fervently, thanking all the gods that Karen was smart enough not to shout or scream. I didn't think my head could take it.

Karen reappeared holding a glass of water and a familiar packet of white pills. Groggily I sat myself up, wincing at the movement. I popped the pill in my mouth and doing my best not to taste it- I swallowed down the water. I'd finished the glass in three, shaky gulps.

I could practically feel the soothingly cold water rushing to my heated head. Eyes closing, I sank back into the bed, wearied.

One thing caught my mind as Karen left- what was wrong with my dreams? I'd never had dreams so lucid and clear before. In fact I don't think I'd ever seen or sensed more deeply in my dreams than in my entire life. And the anguish, the heartbreak, the love, the depression, it was all so real.

The Labyrinth. The Labyrinth had been invading this person's mind, stealing their magic. I shuddered, then winced at the movement as a dull wave of pain crashed through my body. It was most likely the doing of that ratty, horrible Goblin King, going round and stealing magic from people.

This person loved me. Me. Why, I had no clue. I don't recognise them. I don't think I even had met them. So how did they love me? No power?

I was confused, and tired. Maybe if I'd been thinking more clearly I've called Hoggle. Maybe then I wouldn't be in the mess later...


	3. Oh

Chapter 3, Oh.

The second day since I had run the Labyrinth found me tired and irritable, but myself. I'd been fighting, fighting the tiredness back. I'd managed to go down for breakfast that morning, but as soon as Karen had seen me she'd sent me up to bed again. I'd insisted on seeing Toby, and I'd told him from the safety of Karen's arms how sorry I was, for everything. Karen seemed suspicious of me when I repeated my apology to her, and then my father.

I was frightened, but I didn't tell them that. I tried to hold off going to sleep for as long as I could, but in the end, tiredness caught up with me. Yawning, I reluctantly surrendered to the abnormal tiredness, and my dreams.

_I couldn't even move anymore. I could feel my body, vaguely, but my senses were numbing and fading away. Cold surrounded me constantly, drawing me in. Death lurked close, but somehow I knew I wouldn't die just yet. _

_I could still feel my magic being pulled away from me, but I was too weary to fight now. The Labyrinth was in my mind for every minute of it, not doing anything, just there. I could barely even think anymore, my mind was so weak. I was lonely, I was dying, dying alone._

_(())_

"_Jareth." She breathed my name, hugging me tight. "I thought you'd gone forever."  
"So did I," I replied, burying my face in her luxurious hair._

"_Are you sniffing my hair?" Sarah asked accusingly, but humour danced in her glorious jade eyes. Her eyes seemed to change from day to day, moss green, then oak-leaf, jade, emerald, the green of fresh new grass in summertime, and when she was angry or bitter, the cracked brittle green of frozen grass in the cold depths of winter. _

"_Yes," I answered, and kissed her forehead. We were sat side by side on a mossy bank, overlooking a river. Pixies flitted in the glowing flowers. Stars gleamed like chips of ice. I'd never really thought about it, but now I did I thought the stars actually _did _look like chips of ice. They weren't like Aboveground stars, their light polluted by hanging gases and greasy yellow streetlamps, they were Underground stars, shining with magic upon a world saturated with life-giving magic. Knowing the problems Fae had with children, I thought it was ludicrous that everything but one of the most magical races in the Worlds was so devoid of 'life-giving magic'._

"_Hmm," she sighed, and burrowed into my chest, yawning. "I'm tired."_

"_So am I," I whispered, tears coming unexpectedly to my eyes. "I'm so tired, Sarah.I've suffered through countless centuries, endless millennia...You don't understand, you'll never understand...You're so bright, you're so _alive!_ I've never felt so...cold. Death is haunting me. I don't want to die, Sarah. I want you to be real."_

"_Shh," she murmured, cupping my face in her hands. "Shh. I'll be here."_

"_But you aren't real!" I cried, anguished, "The real you hates me. The real you won't even stand the sight of me."_

"_I am real!" Sarah begged. Her eyes were shining with conviction. All I could see was that her lashes were the slightest bit longer than they should have been, that her hair was just a titch too light, that her eyes didn't flash properly and the slight crease about a millimetre from the centre of her lips had been left out. Her blush was slightly too high and she had rounder arms than he remembered. She was fake._

_A tear ran down my pale cheek. I began to cry, my chest heaving with convulsive sobs. "But you aren't," I gasped, "You aren't real. You're just a figment of my imagination. I'm going to die."_

"_No, you aren't," she whispered, and kissed me sweetly. "You are never going to die, my beautiful King."_

_I blinked, shocked. Her voice was changing, carrying a double timbre of the Labyrinth. My beautiful labyrinth._

"_I won't let you die," the labyrinth told me in its androgynous voice vibrating with the power of gramerye and wisdom of billenia, "I will never let you die, my glorious King."_

_Light, light! Blinding light, bright white hot light burning searing changing removing..._

_Then nothing._

_Nothing, as I was drifting, drifting, there was nothing! I screamed, I must have screamed, but no sound came out. My body was gone. Gone..._

_Numb, I drifted, borne by a current of nothing. Gods! Gods save me!_

Shuddering, I bolted upright. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. Gripped by an unshakeable fear of _something, _I hugged my knees to my chest and rocked back and forth. I did my very best to not scream- I didn't want to wake up anyone else.

Something was really wrong with my dreams. Something to do with the Labyrinth, me, and this unknown person. I felt really bad for them. Someone had broken their heart, and for some reason they'd latched onto me. I didn't know who to talk to. Should I tell Hoggle? Sir Didymus? Ludo?

I didn't know. Dreams were more up His street, that I knew from my adventure in the labyrinth, but I'd be damned if I would call Him. He'd probably steal me away in the night or take Toby again. It was just not worth the risk.

I got up, and went to the vanity. A stranger confronted me on the glass.

All of the blood had drained from my face, leaving me sickly pale. My left eye had darkened to muddy emerald. They were luminous almost in my face. My lips were impossibly red and seemed to glimmer. My hair rippled over my back, lustrous and gleaming with health. "What the...?" I mumbled, touching my silky mass of hair. My eyelashes, not even the women on the adverts had half as long as lashes as I did. Curling just slightly, brushing sinfully against my cheek, gleaming with a fine layer of natural oil and black as night- it just wasn't natural. My wan skin was stretched tightly over my bones, I looked like some sort of reanimated corpse. A vampire, almost.

"Hoggle, I need you. Sir Didymus, I need you. Ludo, I need you." I breathed, putting aside my worries about my appearance. I must have forgot to get rid of my makeup, right? That must be it. And maybe I'd left a contact lense in. And Karen'd washed my hair.

I ignored the fact I didn't actually wear contact lenses, and waited. For a ridiculous moment, I worried that it was all a dream, that I'd dreamt it all up and that-

"Sarah?" "My lady?" "Saaawwaaaah!"

I smiled, relieved. They were here. I'd be alright now. Ludo gave me a big hug, squeezing the breath out of me. Hoggle ducked his head and flushed when I gave him a hug and a peck on the cheek.

"My lady, are you alright?" Sir Didymus asked. "You look pale."

_No shit, Sherlock._

"I'm fine now," I told them, and it was true. Now I had them, I was great.

"Ya sure?" Hoggle persisted. He looked genuinely worried. "Tha' rat ain' botherin' ya?"

"No," I answered, but then stopped. "I don't know." I confessed, remembering my dreams.

"What is it?" Hoggle asked. "Ya can tell us, Sarah."

I shifted uncomfortably. My dreams were private. No, I thought, not anymore. Someone was invading them. At least it was my friends and not Him.

"I've...been having dreams," I began nervously. "About someone...whose being drained by the labyrinth."

Silence. They all stared at me with wide eyes, and then all of them began talking at once.

"My lady is right-"

"!"  
"Di'n' ya say tha' rat had no power over ya, righ'?"

"-the King has been indisposed of late-"

"!"

"An' ya ain't, ya know, invi'ed 'im in, 'ave ya?"

"-and the Labyrinth has become-"

"!" Ludo wailed, as if the world were about to end.

None to reassured about my friends' reactions, I begged for quiet then spread my hands. "First things first. Ludo, I don't think I'm about to die. Hoggle, I haven't invited him in or even seen him since my...adventure. Sir Didymus, do you know who this person who supposedly loves me and is in agony over some heartbreak is?"

Quiet again, and they were all staring at me as if I were stupid.

"What?" I snapped, exasperated.

"Well," Hoggle said drily, "Now I'm wonderin' where 'er attention was if i' weren' on tha' rat."  
"My lady does appear to be rather dense, don't you agree, Sir Ludo?"

"Saaaaaawaaaah dennnnnsssssse." Ludo agreed.

"HEY!" I yelped, blushing. I had no clue whom the mystery person was but apparently I was supposed to. "Standing right here! I'm not dense!"

They all cast me mirror doubtful looks. I snarled in fury and grabbed the closest thing to hand to hit one of them with. I looked twice at the object in my hand.

"Oh."

The statuette of the Goblin King. The Goblin King who ruled the Labyrinth. The Goblin King who said he loved me. The Goblin King who was going through severe heartbreak right now. Apparently.

"Ohmygod, I am DENSE. How did I not see this?" I groaned dropping the mini-Jareth on the floor and hugging my knees to my chest. "Seriously, what is _wrong _with me?"

_Oh Jesus._

"Don't answer, please."


	4. Monkshood And Blue Poppies

_Chapter 4, Monkshood and Blue Poppies_

I'd lost everything, now. I drifted helplessly on a current of dreams, a phantom in the nightmare, the shadow in the dream. I couldn't see, or hear, smell, feel, or anything. There was a sense of that chilling cold, that final cold before the blankness.

It could've been grey, it could've been black. I couldn't sense anything and the complete absence of any sensations scared me. I didn't understand what I was doing here. Why I was here.

So I floated, alone, bereft, on the ever-changing flow of human dreams and wishes, occasionally sucked into a dream to play a part in their cruel game.

Humans were underestimated. Fae would kill yes, but humans would torture. Fae would hurt, humans would destroy. Fae were stronger, humans were ruthless. Humans had the power of imagination. All Fae were helpless before their cruelty, and yet we still believe ourselves so high and mighty, while our plainer cousins wreak despair upon us. It was almost sad, this innate power of death in the human soul. Faerie were lions, killing only if they needed to, but humans killed because they wanted to.

And as I drifted, I wandered the shadowed paths darkly, jumping from mind to mind, till I found the one my labyrinth had bade me search for.

At last, a shining beacon out of the darkness. I sensed the flavour of her dreams and my nonexistent blood stirred. She was awake now, yes...A shiver of excitement ran up my nonexistent spine. So I lurked in the shadows of her mind, never quite forgotten, tempting her, weakening her...

_Becoming her._

()

I felt...off. A throbbing headache pounded my skull, and I'd been landed in bed. Tossing and turning, I lay uneasily. Hoggle and Sir Didymus had visited earlier, like they had yesterday with Ludo. Of the Labyrinth they'd only reported that the maze itself seemed to not be moving at all and He was nowhere to be found. At least, not anywhere the common people knew of.

Something was wrong, I could feel it. And...He kept cropping up in my thoughts. I'd see Him everywhere, in the crinkles of my duvet, the shape of the fluffy clouds, even once in my soup bowl. He stalked nearly every thought, His voice purring through my mind, whispering soft tempts that while not really forgotten haunted my mind like...owls in trees.

And there He was again! He could turn into an owl, I found myself thinking. His laughter rumbled wickedly in the edges of my conscious.

_Give in, _He purred, _Let me in. You want to. Why don't you?_

I blocked Him out as best as I could, by doing my best to ignore Him. He just laughed at me outright and continued to weave His insidious path in my head. I tried to struggle out of bed but the effort proved too much and I collapsed- all but exhausted, back on my soft bed, staring up at the ceiling.

It was white, and boring. I wanted something to distract my thoughts.

_I can give you everything, _He cajoled, _just let me in, and I'll give you your _dreams.

_Liar, _I hissed, and redoubled my efforts at blocking Him.

He seemed beaten back for the moment, and I sighed with relief. My eyes fell on the sculpture sitting on my dresser and I squeaked in shock. How had that got there?

He came pouring into my mind, laughing all the while. I mustered my defences and tried to oust Him, but he pressed distractions into my mind. I fought, but one caught me and I was snared.

_I lay on a bed of peach blooms, an arch above my head. It was wicker, and blue poppies curled around the wood. Blue poppies. I smiled, _immortal love. _I turned my head, and there He was, beside me._

_He wore a poet shirt open to the waist and His wide black belt around His midsection. His tight leggings covered His legs and His feet were clothed in black boots. His medallion gleamed._

_Gently, He took me in His arms, and stroked my hair. Content, I snuggled into His chest and breathed in His warm smell. He chuckled, and I looked up._

"_Are you sniffing me?" He accused, humour dancing in His eyes._

_I smiled and replied, "Yes."_

_He laughed again, and kissed my brow._

_Smiling, He leaned down until our noses were touching. His breath ghosted across my face. Closer, his lips came, until..._

I bolted into reality and threw Him from my mind, ignoring His dark cackle.

_I can give you that, _He purred seductively, _and so much more. I can make you a _queen. _I can give you everything...and more._

I shook him off, disturbed, afraid and alone. Hugging my knees to my chest, I rocked, helpless in the face of danger, danger that stalked the pathways of my starlit mind.

It should have been monkshood on the arch. Monkshood and blue poppies.

_Beware. Beware of immortal love._

**That little reference, monkshood and blue poppies, not mine, credit goes to the writer of the Thirteenth Rider.**


	5. Like Drunk Teenagers

Chapter 5, Like Drunk Teenagers

_There was nothing but greyness, all around me. I blinked, startled. There was no end to the greyness, just an abnormal amount of...nothing. I may have been floating, suspended in the emptiness, but I couldn't tell. There was no definite end or beginning. _

_Nothing. A vacuum of everything, everything but me._

_And Him._

_I felt Him, a touch on my shoulder, and a breath on my lips, and chuckle in my ear. I whirled around, but He was not there._

_Frightened, I tried to bolt, but He appeared in the corner of my eye, a pale hand, dark eyes. Flashing from place to place, He hounded me, hunted me. A wisp of sun-kissed hair. The curve of a knee. _

"_Where are you?" I shouted defiantly, "Face me!"_

_Inside I shook with fear, but I mustered my forces and plastered a brave look on my face. Sternly I pushed away my fear as best as I could and concentrated of defeating Him. I'd done it before, hadn't I?_

"_Very well," He purred, and all of a sudden, was behind me._

_A strong arm snaked around my waist, and I could feel His chest brushing against my back as He leaned forward. His hair touched my neck when He rested His dagger-sharp chin on my shoulder. I screamed, writhing fruitlessly, but He chuckled menacingly and simply tightened His arm around my chest. My scream cut off abruptly as I was forced to catch my breath, winded._

"_Get off me!" I gasped._

"_Do you want me to?" He whispered in my ear. I couldn't help but shiver. "Just give in," He cajoled._

"_GO AWAY!" I all-but screeched, and obligingly He vanished, and reappeared right in front of my face. Smothering a yelp, I backed away cautiously._

_He smirked, and I noticed how His body appeared to be flickering around the edges, as if He were insubstantial, a ghost. For some reason, it made my spine prickle with apprehension. This was a dream? It had to be, right? No one could walk around like that. As if they were dead..."Why are you here?" I demanded._

"_Should I not be?" He asked me, stalking forward, something fiery snapping in his intense dark eyes. _

_Staggering backward, I gulped, abruptly reminded of the fact this was no ordinary creature but the Goblin King, dangerous, mercurial, power-hungry, and hauntingly...weird._

_Suddenly something cold and hard appeared behind my back, stopping my retreat. I spun, and saw a sandstone wall blocking my escape. It continued off into the distance in a straight, unbroken line. The uniform yellowish peach blocks were flat and rough. Un-climbable. _

"_How?" I asked somewhat breathlessly, momentarily forgetting the great, proud creature lurking behind me._

"_Everything is possible," He murmured in my ear, suddenly too close, "If you believe."_

_I turned quickly, my fist flying out, but I missed Him. He laughed coldly at my weak effort. "You're no match for me, Sarah."_

_Scared out of my wits, I wondered desperately how He could appear behind me without my knowledge. Was I that unobservant? "I recall you saying that last time I beat you too!" I jibed, intending to anger Him, draw Him out._

_He snarled. "Beware, little girl," He hissed angrily, "Even in dreams, people can get hurt. People can die." _

_He vanished again, to my silent shiver. _

_I shrank back against the wall, scanning the undulating mists for any sign of my foe. At least with my back against the wall He couldn't appear behind me. There was nothing._

_My pulse was starting to race, and my palms were beaded with sweat. My breaths sounded as loud as clock chimes. I tried desperately to hide my fear but I knew it wasn't working. He could read me as easily as He could a book. _

_Another wall appeared to my left, and another, my right. I gasped in shock._

_He was hemming me in. I charged thoughtlessly up the narrowing pathway, yelling a challenge. A crazy idea took root in my mind. This was a dream, right? And if I was the dreamer, surely I'd be able to change things in my own dream?_

_Skidding to a stop, I imagined a gap appearing in the walls. To my delight one instantly appeared with a shower of dust and glitter. I skipped through the escape, pausing before a large staircase that had sprouted out of nowhere. I narrowed my eyes, and imagined another path heading away from Him. _

_We engaged in a crazy battle of gravity-less cat and mouse, creating our very own Escher Room. I fled up stairs and under bridges, I chased along pathways and I leapt over gaps. He was behind me every step of the way, hunting, snarling with anger._

_Bizarrely as we raced, I had the crazy thought that if only someone remotely clever had such vivid and controllable dreams, someone like Stephen Hawkin or Einstien could take over the world with their discoveries. I shook away my conflicting thoughts before I accidently summoned something...Or got caught._

_He would sidle up behind me and grab me, and I would wriggle away. Our dance was intricate and complicated, and if one of us so much as even stepped a smidgen out of line, the other would destroy them._

_We played against our weaknesses and undermined our strengths. He was much stronger than I was, physically and mentally, and I tired very quickly. He laughed mockingly._

_I staggered up a flight of stairs, and fell to my knees, exhausted. My chest heaved and my heart fluttered like a dying bird's. My breath stuttered and gasped, and I cursed my asthma._

_I could sense Him prowling around the miniature maze I'd left behind me, visualized quickly from a memory of the Labyrinth and crammed full of as many booby traps and dangers from my world I could think of. He'd get through it, but maybe I'd have a little time...Just, to catch my breath..._

_I wished I had my inhaler. All of a sudden it was there, in my hand. Eagerly I breathed in the recuperating gas and searched for my hunter. Maybe if it wasn't for my asthma, I might have got away..._

_He was there, smiling a terrible, victorious, fanged smile, as He stalked closer, a deadly sword in hand. "I love you," He whispered, "But I'm going to have to kill you."  
Helplessly, I backed away, finding myself against another wall. I was too frightened to image myself away. My mind had gone blank in animal terror. _

_Then, He began to speak, in His dark, terrifying voice that made my knees go weak and my heart flutter with the intensity of His bloodthirsty speech. "I'm going to kill you," he snarled, lifting his wickedly serrated sword, gleaming dully in the non-light of the greyness, "And as you die, so will your dreams. I will take back the power you stole off me, and I will return." He smirked, His lips curving up to reveal deadly sharp fangs any vampire would be proud of. _

_I stood there, trembling with fright, my face chalky-white and my knees knocking, and impossibly, I felt a spark of rage fuel me. I straightened, awaiting my death with pride and dignity. There was nothing I could do, but I'd fight Him every step of the way. I was Sarah Williams! He was a puny, stuck-up Goblin King with insecurities. Why else would He need to hurt?_

_He waved His hand, almost negligently, and suddenly I couldn't move. I squirmed, wide eyed with fear and hate, and he sauntered forward to kill me. I shrank, helplessly away from His shining blade. It shook my world to realise just how blasé he was about all of this. Apparently He'd loved me. What a joke. A sad, sick joke. I should have never listened. I should have killed Him when I had the chance..._

_And I will now. He can kill my dreams. I can kill Him. I can tear His black heart from His chest, and I can laugh while I'm doing it._

_Just a second before His blade pierced my chest, a wave smashed over me._

_I felt every negative emotion that compelled me to fight drain away. Fear, hate, anger were swept away by the tide of power. I slumped against the wall, dizzy. Glancing into His eyes, I saw they were hazy and confused. He weaved like a drunkard, hands at his temples._

_My vision sparkled with spots, and I sagged, retching. Tingles of power shot up my arms._

_Then the tide cleared, and I blinked. Jareth looked at me, and then smiled happily. The sword dropped from his hand and the invisible chains melted away. I fell into him and giggled. He laughed too, and wrapped his arms around me._

"_What just happened?" I asked the Goblin King cheerfully._

_We sniggered as our noses bumped into one another's. "That was the labyrinth," he announced brightly. "She sensed I was about to kill your dreams and removed everything to make us fight." _

_Jareth frowned in puzzlement. "Why did I want to kill your dreams?" _

_I shrugged. Vaguely I got the sense I'd understand if the change hadn't happened, but now I just couldn't comprehend why either of us would want to hurt each other in any way. It was so _wrong. _Why on Earth would I want to hurt _anyone? _What was the _point?

_We toppled backwards all of a sudden, and landed on something soft and cushy. "Oh," he said in a somewhat confounded voice, "Who put this here?"_

"_It wasn't me," I avowed, looking at the royal red bed we'd just landed on. "Hmm," I shook my finger at the bed, "Naughty bed. Appearing under people when they're talking."_

_Jareth snickered foolishly, and hugged me like one does their puppy after a long absence. I let him, wrapping my arms around him and smiling idiotically. "I love you."_

_Normally if I'd heard him say those words I would've probably fainted dead away, but it seemed perfectly natural to me. "I know," I confided, clapping my hands together in delight._

_A tiny crease appeared on his forehead, and his curiously vapid eyes became slightly troubled. "How?"_

"_When the labyrinth first attacked you, I was there too." I allowed my eyes to memorise every crease and line in his face. It was important, amazingly important that I be able to recall the exact image of his visage. Extremely important. I couldn't for the life of me remember why, but obviously it had something to do with the pre-wave..._

"_Why are we behaving like drunk teenagers?" He asked me, his brow furrowing. He kissed my forehead, seeming absorbed in the curve of my nose._

"_No idea," I mumbled, "Though it's probably to do with the labyrinth taking away our will to fight."_

_Agreeing, Jareth drew back a moment to peer at my eyes. "Funny," he remarked, "I don't feel any different."_

"_Neither do I," I confessed. "You're really very pretty, you know?" _

"_You're even prettier," he told me, and we laughed together. Neither of us really knew why we were laughing._

"_If we were normal right now," I giggled, "You would have probably started trying to, I dunno, attack me or something." _

"_Probably," Jareth snickered, eyes glowing with drunken merriment. He didn't seem at all troubled by the fact for some incomprehensible reason we'd just been at each other's throats. _

"_Do you use hair product or is your hair just strange?" I wondered, raking my fingers through the almost-white spikes of deliciously soft hair. "And how is it so soft?"_

"_That's the way I am," Jareth said cheerfully. "Soft, and strange."_

_We laughed. _Why were we laughing?

_Drowsiness began to creep up on me, and I sighed. Snuggling into his warm chest, I closed my eyes and turned my face into his neck._

"_Hmm," Jareth muttered. "I feel really strange now...All tired and...I don't know."_

_His head dropped onto my shoulder, and his arms tightened._

_Slowly, we drifted off to sleep, wrapped in each other's arms._

()

Opening my eyes, I was presented with the rather boring image of my ceiling. I bit my lip, glancing off to the side. No, I was in my room, stuffed with child keepsakes and other stuff. I giggled at the sight of the statuette on my dresser and grabbed it.

Hugging the min-Jareth to me, I pondered the strangeness of my dream. It was probably real. I snickered.

Yawning, I felt the touches of the invasion on my mind start up again. Grinning like a fool, I allowed him to begin to weave himself into my mind, propelled by the Labyrinth.

After all, why on Earth would I want to fight Jareth?

My vision was starting to flicker, and something was tugging at my mind. I clapped my hands and allowed myself to be bourn away on a light current of magic.

The last thing I saw was the agonised face of a ugly dwarf, and his desperate plea,

"_SARAH! No! Don't give in!"_

Then, later, as the world revolved around me in swirling colours of blue and brown,

"_Never...never give in."_

**Oh dear...Maybe the whole 'no negative emotions thing' isn't exactly the best choice of action...Is Jareth working in his own interest, or Sarah's? Is it even Jareth? Is somehow the Labyrinth behind this? What will happen to Sarah now? And what is wrong with Hoggle...?**


	6. The Choice

_**Chapter 6, The Choice**_

_The world cleared, revealing Jareth standing in a pool of sparkling water, moonlight shivering through his hair. He looked like some sort of demigod, standing there, with his ancient eyes shrouded by something else, emitting wisdom, strength and world-eating sadness. Trees- weeping willows- hung over the water, their green tears falling onto the still water. _

_I sighed, it was perfect. I was struck by a sudden need to go to him, the same way in the crystal ballroom I had known I must find him. I moved forward, barely registering the lily-white gown rustling at my ankles, the earthy press of the soil between my bare toes, the slightest breath of wind through my unbound hair. The stars overhead glittered and shone like otherworldly Christmas lights. A half moon, pale and ethereal, hung like a milky vampire's bite nestled on black velvet dotted by celestial fireflies. _

_He stood there, just watching me, silent, unattainable, unreachable. Tantalisingly close, but so far away. His mismatched eyes, blue-brown were dark with weary agony. He sighed, a conscious exhalation of breath that ghosted across the world, a breeze ruffling my hair. He lifted one hand from his side, and showed me the moon in his grasp, shining like a dove. _

_Unconsciously, I fell to my knees before him at the pool's edge, bowing my head to his sadness and his power._

"_Rise," he murmured, his voice slithering like a moth from chrysalis, spreading its magic into the night-dark world. "Do not bow to me."_

_I did as he commanded, and stepped forward, the cool water lapping around my ankles._

"_Do I choose you?" I asked him, extending my hand. It glimmered pure white in the darkness. _

"_Do you want to?" He replied, the saddest of smiles curving his lips. _

_I considered the question. Did I wish to bond myself to this magnificent creature, he who ordered the stars and commanded the world, he who ruled for eons on end, he who had no beginning and no end but was a cohesive whole? _

"SARAH! No...don't give in...Never...never give in." _Hoggle had whispered. Hoggle had never given me reason to doubt his judgement, and he knew a lot more about the ancient creature before me than I did. But I couldn't shake the feeling that I must choose him. Always him._

"_What would happen to you?" I pleaded, praying for an answer but half praying for a different one._

"_I would fade into the ether," He answered benevolently, "Where I would watch over the world as a body-less entity."_

_We both knew what he really meant. If I said no, pushed him away, he would die. "What would happen to me?" I whispered, my voice lower. _

_He closed his eyes and bowed his head. "You would be overcome."_

_If I chose him, I died. If I chose Hoggle, he died. How could I choose? How could I not? How could I possibly decide between myself and this ancient creature full of worlds worth's of memories, experiences? How could I choose? He could be lying, this could be some elaborate ploy to get to Toby. Could I endanger my little brother, whom I had only just got back? And Hoggle, I would forever choose between he and Jareth, I knew they couldn't exist together, one of them would have to go._

_I took a step closer, and wrapped my arms around his neck. He sighed, and I knew that he knew. He lowered his head and allowed me to kiss his lips before I stepped away forever._

_I chose._

_**Is Sarah going to die? Or Jareth? Who shall she choose? And please remember, no one's dead just yet, so technically you don't have to kill me! Yay! Let's remember that!**_


	7. As I Die,

_Chapter 7, As I Die_

_I was getting stronger. Stronger and stronger, as the influence on my mind faltered, gave way, then ceased. Once I awoke and looked out of these strange new eyes to a dwarf's wrinkly face. And all the dwarf said was, "Why?"_

()

He was stronger now. _"..She's got..." _Now I'd let my barriers down, he came a-flooding into my mind, seeming to crush me in his entirety. _"Worlds away, when I first saw her..." _Snatches of memories and fascinating tidbits of thought incomprehensible to me whirled around my head.

"_...eyes like emerald fire, I'd hate to look..." _

I spent nearly all of my time a-bed, my body instinctively repelling him, trying to fight back against the alien invasion. _"I accept my duty as Lord..." _More often than not I drifted into my dreams, and he would there, and as I faded, he solidified._"O, lifa's naunen leyra,"_ He would hold me in his arms, and let me cry into his shirt in my pathetic exhaustion.

"_**Sarah, I love you, I love you, please don't go..." He pleaded, slapping my unresponsive face. I blinked, fresh tears beginning to run down my cheeks.**_

"_**I'm not strong enough," I told him, weak as a newborn baby, "I can't hold on."**_

"_**Yes you can!" He demanded fiercely, and there was such a pain-filled desperation in his eyes that I sighed involuntarily.  
"Sing to me," I whispered in my brittle voice, "Sing to me as I die."**_

I could never tell what time it was in those rare moments I lapsed into reality. _"Reality? Reality? This a room of no reality." _I couldn't tell which was which anymore. They both seemed so real to me. I wondered what it was like to be dead. _"Gone! Gone..." _I'd never been particularly religious, but now I felt a terrible need to believe in something in the last moments of my short life.

"_**As the world falls down...I'll be there for you, as the world falls down..."**_

"_**My world's falling down, Jareth," I whimpered, so afraid.**_

"_**I'm here," he reminded me, but it didn't sound like a blessing.**_

I wondered if I would go to hell, if there was one. Probably. Wishing away my brother, being a brat all my life. I did sacrifice myself to save another, though, didn't I?

"_Shaynn!" _

_Her terrified eyes held mine as she was dragged away. "Jareth!"_

_Then the dungeon door slammed, and I was alone..._

Great, now I'm even talking about me in the past tense. Is this what knowing you're going to die very shortly does to you?

()

_I tried to refrain from touching her, did my very best to be as careful as possible. Maybe, maybe, if I tried hard enough, was gentle enough, she would be able to survive this. Maybe. But the Labyrinth pushed me in deeper, weaving my very darkest depths to her own. She was an open book before me, I experienced everything she had, which was very embarrassing most of the time. There were some things females were an awful lot better equipped to deal with than males, I decided, then was appalled with myself for being humorous in such a dreadful time._

"**Hang on, love, we'll get through this," I whispered, helplessly watching her drift away from me. **

"**You'll get through this," she laughed, her cackle sounding as dry and bitter as glass. "Promise...promise me you won't give up."**

"**I won't."**

_I held her in her-our?- dreams, whispered quiet consolations and wished with all of my twisted little heart I could save her. Maybe I could, if I tried hard enough. I wouldn't be able to live without her. Seven Kingdoms, no. Please, if there ever was anyone up there...Don't leave me alone again._

()

I sensed his anguish and tried to comfort him. I chose this, I reminded him, I could have said no.

_No you couldn't, _he wailed, and his mental voice seemed to have doubled in size and strength in the last hour. I was momentarily drowned under his crushing weight. I felt his overwhelming panic as he accidently buried me in his essence. He dived through himself, searching his memories for me.

_Spinning my sword, I lunged forward and tapped her collarbone, grinning triumphantly. Shaynn scowled, grabbing her own sword out of the dirt and stalked off, leaving me there, grinning like a fool. "Beat you!" I yelled after her. _

"_Shut up Jareth!" She snapped, turning around, "You cheated."_

"_I didn't!" I protested, sheathing my sword, "Why would I cheat? I'm so much better than you."_

I was expiring quietly in the depths of his mind, unable to call out to him.

_What is the point of life? I asked myself, staring at the bejewelled dagger stained with ruby blood from my own veins. What is the point of living? Who am I to assume immortality when so many others die around me?_

_I buried my face in my hands and wept quietly over the body of the innocent, tortured babe. She'd been wished away to me. I'd tried everything to keep her alive, but she'd expired from multiple wounds inflicted by her own mother. Dead. Gone. Another innocent life. Innocence. Life's greatest illusion._

At last, he found me, and hooked me back into my trembling perch away from his mind.

_Her entrancing green eyes held me, fuzzy with my drug, and I revelled in her power. Her hip fitted comfortably in my hand, made exactly it seemed, for me. I love you, I thought then, and my only emotion was surprise. Her lips were half open in an utterly adorable and mind-blowingly tempting way. It seemed as if a blanket had been lifted away from the world- I could see everything clearly. I wouldn't just die for her, I realised, I would live through burning torment. I would kill for her. I would not walk to the ends of the earth, instead I would bring the ends of the earth to her. I would move the stars and juggle the worlds. _

_And it frightened me._

I received the impression of cradling a bright green soul, struggling dimly in a swirling tide of blue-brown. _She's fading!_

And then together, we drifted into our waking dreams.

_**I found myself in a part of what I guessed was the Labyrinth that I didn't know. I was lying on a pile of cushions, staring out to a lake, and Jareth was beside me. I was too exhausted to move, the tears dribbling slowly out of my staring eyes.**_

_**He gathered me up, his tortured eyes all the words I needed to hear, and kissed my lips. "Please stay with me," he begged, "Please, you stubborn, impossible woman, stay with me."**_

I had about a second to wake up before the roiling tide of magic smashed into me, and knocked me under, so deep that even Jareth could never find me.

()

_Desperately I searched the dim passageways of my mind, but there was only me. Where was she? Aha, no, that was a memory of me viewing one of her memories. Where was she? _

_Sarah! I called, helpless. What could I do? The vague tinges of magic still tickled my consciousness. The Labyrinth had taken her from me. Forever._

_I roared in anger and threw myself against my labyrinth, clawing desperately, longing, knowing she was gone. Gone..._

_I too had barely a second to backpedal before a wave of magic crashed through my mind, subduing me, drugging me into sleep, dragging me away from her body and mine, into the cool-calm-mint of the Labyrinth..._

_It had begun._

**A/N-Ok, really. Ask yourself this, would you save your life or the life of an ancient supernatural creature you don't know that you may or may not be developing feelings for that MIGHT if you choose him kill all your family, find some way to return you, break you, but at the same time could turn out to be a very complex, interesting, worthy person that is pure and wholesome, and deserves to live a lot more than you do? Selfishly, I'd guess I'd pick me to live...But alas, Sarah has the brains of a cabbage or the Labyrinth is using some seriously effective drug... By the way, things in bold are dreams. **


	8. Driven Over The Edge

_Chapter 8, Driven Over The Edge_

Humming discordantly under her breath, Karen bustled around the kitchen, clattering pots and slapping some bacon onto the frying pan. Toby gurgled happily, waving his eggy toast around like it was some sort of sword. Karen smiled at her son and wondered where her errant step-daughter was. She should be up by now.

She paused for a moment, certain she had heard a sound from Sarah's bedroom. Silence. She shrugged and continued with her work. Who knew what Sarah got up to?

An eerie, hair-raising, spine-tingling and bone-chilling scream echoed throughout the house.

The scream petered off into a pathetic moan audible even from downstairs. Seriously worried now, and slightly suspicious about what was going on in Sarah's room, Karen grabbed a ladle and ventured upstairs. She pushed open the door hesistantly.

She cried out in shock and horror.

Sarah's body was flipping and convulsing wildly, incoherent screams of pure agony issuing from her mouth. Her skin was sparkling and she seemed to be pulsating with an supernatural glow. Her green eyes were crazed and enormous with unimaginable agony. The left eye had darkened to a muddy brown colour.

"NO!" Sarah roared suddenly, jerking uncontrollably. She crashed into the floor, but seemed not to notice. All of a sudden the glow in her skin increased and a different voice came from her lips. "SARAH! By Gods, what have you done? _SAAAARAAAAH!"_

"JARETH!" Sarah's voice again, not the British sounding masculine voice of before, "Don't go, don't go, don't go..."

Her back arched and she uttered another pathetic groan.

"ROB!"

"JAAAAAAAHHHHH...reeeetttthhhh..." She groaned, nearly incoherent, and curled into a ball, her scream filtering into a moan of despair halfway.

"Sarah!" Karen yelped, and ran to her daughter.

Sarah gasped. She looked past Karen, through her, a scream building out of her throat as she began to convulse again.

Robert burst into the room, his phone in one hand. "I called the ambulance," He told his wife, frantic.

"_! AAAAAAHHHHH!"_ Suddenly she was still, and the other voice emerged, "Please, please...don't give up, don't give up..."

"Who are you!" Karen snapped recognising that some other entity occupied her step-daughter.

"I am the Goblin King," He whispered, and they began to scream again.

Karen staggered back into the arms of Robert, and they clutched each other urgently.

"He's just a storybook," Robert gasped, "He was only a storybook..."

"What has she done? Robert, what about Toby?"

()

For days they were stranded in the hospital, screaming and screaming and screaming. Driven insane by an insatiable need to be one, as the Labyrinth tried desperately to knit their minds together. Utterly oblivious to the outside world, the convulsing battleground of Sarah's body flipped and contorted in grotesque ways. The doctors shot her through with enough morphine to knock out a horse and yet the crackling energy that snarled along her body burned it all away the same way it did her restraints.

Finally all they could do was lock her in a sound-proofed ward of her own, and try and make sure she didn't die from whatever illness afflicted her...and wonder who Jareth was.


	9. Insatiable

_he reached for her she grabbed him their ghostly bodies sometimes slipping through one another's her nails carving bloody furrows on his forearms as she clung tighter they needed more they needed to be closer _

"_jareth!" she yelled_

"_sarah!" he screamed_

The nurse wrung her hands, looking down through the glass at the writhing body of Sarah Williams, aged fifteen. The poor girl's forehead was beaded with sweat. Her voice was hoarse from screaming that one name, again and again. She buckled and twisted and struggled and wriggled. She screamed and yelled and cried and roared and wept.

Nothing worked. The strongest sleep medicines did nothing more than slow her struggles for a few seconds before the amazing crackling energy that charged along her limbs burnt it away. She flipped out of control. A glowing sheen covered her skin that was not from sweat.

There was only one explanation, but it was not an explanation at all. It was an addled suggestion. _Magic._

"JAAAAARRRRREEETHHH!" the girl screamed, and then suddenly-

Stopped.

There was a resounding silence in the ward as they stared in shock at the flat IV.

She was dead.

"Oh, God," the nurse whispered. A doctor crossed himself and murmured a quiet prayer. Another doctor hurried in and checked her pulse rate. He looked shocked, then glanced up at the glass with a hopeful expression and shaking his head.

Abruptly the IV began to thrum, so fast it was almost faster than a hummingbird's wings. A twinkling glow stretched over the girl's skin, obscuring everything but the shape of her glowing body.

The doctor ran back into the glass room and shut the door just as Sarah began to rise off the bed, pulled upwards by the magic. A resounding voice, ancient, powerful, otherworldly, whispered through her mouth,

"_**Be calm.**__**"**_


	10. Coexistence Is A Wonderful Existence

_Coexistence Is A Wonderful Existence_

_They coexisted._

_Just existed, together, minds irreparably meshed together, emotions scattered and thoughts warped, a swirling, bright conflagration of violet-red-black and green-white-orange. There was no separation between them, they were one whole. A whole and it as so that they couldn't possibly conceive the idea of ever being separate again._

_They wore no flesh over the brightness of their souls, but they did not need it. The violet-red-green radiated love and peaceful serenity. There were two parts to this cohesive whole, the violet-red-black and the green-white-red, but they were one, you could not see the difference._

I love you, _he whispered through thoughts. He had no hand to touch her face with, nor did she have a face for him to touch. Instead he drew her into a mental embrace, radiating waves of security and love. She nestled into the glowing brightness of everything that was him, her equally bright self emitting pulsing waves of gentleness and quiet peace. _

_They cared not about the past, or the future. They just coexisted, together, cradled on a warm current of subconscious magic, living in the present. Their love for one another was not one a man holds for his mate or even that which he holds for his brother or soul partner, but a love so broad and encompassing it swelled to fill their entire minds. It did not matter; the world did not matter, in the face of this love. A love like no other and yet like all. Not devotion, never devotion, he was too proud and so was she, nor adoration nor fawning slave-hood. It was respect, of sorts, but held none of the detachment respect so envisaged. _

_It was the love of two people who shared the same soul, who shared the same mind-space. A tolerance, but a tolerance so vast and so grand they were infinitely forgiving of each other's equally infinite flaws. They coexisted in this love, drifting with quiet joy on the shifting turbulence of the Labyrinth's inner core, living in the present, ignoring the past, and making the future..._

((()))

The nurse was terrified out of her wits. She glanced hopefully up at the clock, her shift was nearly over. Sarah Williams had not moved since the time when she had told the entire ward, which were most definitely not calm to be calm. One of them had even fainted. Except from the steady rise and fall of her chest and the muted glow shifting in myriad patterns across her fair skin, she was completely still.

And she was changing. It was gradual, but it was there. Her features were shifting, taking on a slightly more rarefied look. Her hair was lightening. Her frame was growing taller and her skin glistened with a strange- _magical-_ hue.

Whatever she was becoming, the nurse thought, it would not be long before she woke up. And then at last, quandaries would be solved.

She just hoped the answers didn't come in the form of death.

**Goodness Gracious, I think I've become too absorbed in Anne Rice...All these different types of love...and the absorption with death...**


	11. Awakening

**Well, here we are. Chapter 11, already. 11, and at last we see what happens when she wakes up.**

_**Chapter 11, Awakening**_

_Silence. Breathing. In. Out. Thought. Buzzing. _

Beep. Beep. Beep.

_Rattle of air. Quiet. Tingle of something across skin._

Beep. Beep. Beep.

_Annoying. Go away. Woman, here. Nurse._

Beep. Beep. Beep.

_CLARITY_

()

It was almost undetectable, if it weren't for the machines. The IV sped up slightly, registering the change in the heartbeat as more oxygen flowed through the woman's lungs. The doctor glanced up from where he stood next to the clinically white bed, writing on a clipboard.

He was a handsome man, with that sort of innocence. Caramel brown eyes. Soft brown hair. Tall. White coat. Kind lips. Nice nose.

He had a nametag, saying, _Dr Yatts._

The nurse, the same one who had watched Sarah Williams' features shift and change, who had watched from a Plexiglas shield her writhing and her strange message. The same one who sat worriedly, watching the girl's chest rise and fall, utterly motionless.

A soft sigh came out of the girl's lips, and her eyes opened.

Dr Yatts blinked in shock. The nurse, whose name was Jane, sighed just as wearily as the girl at seeing her greatly changed eyes.

Sarah simply looked around for a bit, before settling back. She gasped all of a sudden, then said, "I can feel him."

"Who?" Jane asked, touching the girl's hand. She shared a glance with Dr Yatts, who looked shocked.

Sarah had been the bane of the hospital. In the thirteen days she had spent, mostly writhing, then just the awful stillness, people all over the hospital had come to peer in at her. No one had had any idea about what was happening.

Sarah looked up, her dual eyes wide and innocent. "Him...Jareth."

And this Jareth. When her family had been questioned, they had known nothing about this Jareth, though there had been one time when he was reported to be speaking through her, claiming he was the Goblin King. The Goblin King was a character from Sarah's favourite book, apparently.

Jane's personal opinion was maybe the poor girl had become hooked on something a bit too much.

"Right," She said, "Sarah, I want you to try and think clearly."

"He's in my head," Sarah whispered, blinking owlishly, "He's alive!"

Jane opened her mouth to say more, but then suddenly Sarah looked at her. "I'm not stupid and I'm not crazy, miss," she said in a completely normal voice, "Measure my brain activity. Run a test. I've got me and I've got Jareth in my head."  
Dr Yatts shrugged and said, "Sarah, how are you feeling?"

"Awesome!" The girl replied cheerfully, then suddenly frowned. "Uh, shut up, immortal weirdo," she muttered. There was a silence, then she suddenly blushed and shouted, "Hey!" Another wait, and then, "Clue's in the name, dumbass, _mortal. _And will you stop calling me that?"

"Um, Miss Williams," Dr Yatts began, but was cut off by Sarah sitting up.

When Jane rushed to help her, Sarah laughed and said, "Oh, don't worry about me...Really, I'm fine."

With a dark glare at no one in particular, she muttered, "You've been in my head for a total of five seconds and I already hate you."

"Hate is a passionate emotion...God, you are so _messed up!" _Her face scrunched up.

"Yes, well you're fragile hope is to become NO HOPE, if I have anything to do with it." Sarah suddenly exclaimed loudly, her eyes flashing in anger. She certainly didn't _look _ill, but sound was something else entirely... "Don't call me that!" She retorted after a pause.

"You know what, I'm just going to ignore you." Sarah said resolutely, folding her arms across her chest and giving Jane an oddly conspiratorial glance.

"Shut up." The girl hummed, tapping her fingers against her arm as she tried to ignore something that neither Dr Yatts or Jane could see.

"Just- SILENCE!" She snapped irritably. Her expression was curiously vacant. "GAH!"

"WHY?" Now she sounded incredulous, and slightly insulted too.

"Where _were _you for like, forever?" Sardonic, now.

"Do you have a glib answer for everything?" She sighed to herself exasperatedly.

"I think she should be transferred," Jane whispered, glancing at the girl talking to herself. Dr Yatts nodded.

"Apparently it has caused mental trauma."

Sarah looked up. "Hear that?" She said triumphantly, "You're just damage, Jareth."

**OK, here is what Jareth said in reply earlier on.**

_**At least, hate is a passionate emotion, princess.**_

"**Hate is a passionate emotion...God, you are so **_**messed up!"**_

_**Messed up? Never, princess, I simply strive in fragile hope to reach the icy chambers of your frozen heart.**_

"**Yes, well you're fragile hope is to become NO HOPE, if I have anything to do with it."**

_**Whatever you say, princess.**_

"**Don't call me that!"**

_**As you wish, queenling.**_

"**You know what, I'm just going to ignore you."**

_**Good luck.**_

"**Shut up."**

_**Your wish is my command, O Champion.**_

"**Just- SILENCE!"**

_**I live to serve you, **_**princess**_**.**_

"**GAH!"  
**_**I still think you feel **_**something **_**for me...Some little warmth..?**_

"**WHY?"**

_**Oh come on, don't try and hide it, princess, you know you love me really.**_

"**Where **_**were **_**you for like, forever?"**

_**The Underground.**_

"**Do you have a glib answer for everything?"**

_**Of course, my princess.**_


	12. And Now You Realise

_Chapter 12, And Now You Realise_

I woke.

Instantly I became aware of _Him, _the gleaming structures of his inhuman mind firmly connected to my own. I gasped helplessly, overwhelmed by the sheer force of his exquisitely powerful brain, power singing through me as it sang through him, a lethal temptation to immerse myself in the lyric strains of his mind. It was ice-cold and razor-sharp, cutting-edge and so..._different. _He thought in terms of millennia, centuries, and I days and years.

And his memories...Exquisitely vivid, gorgeously rendered, perfectly recalled, they were arrayed in the equivalent of gleaming shelves of his structured mind, the hive of buzzing thought and activity. It was as clear as a note from a bell, as crystal. Yes, crystal, that was it. Myriad refractions, a rainbow of thought.

I was hopelessly inferior and incredibly stupid by comparison. My mind was fuzzy, I remembered memories only when they were triggered, and random thoughts often interrupted me. His? No, he was different and powerful and haunting.

Our minds gently bumped against one another's, there wasn't enough room in my head for the two of us, like two wild animals meeting for the first time.

A cold shiver ran down my spine. His mind was alien. It felt vast and powerful, weighted with memories of uncounted years. Dark thoughts loomed out of sight and touch, artefacts of his race that made me cringe when they brushed my consciousness. Yet through all the sensations shimmered a melody of wild, haunting beauty that embodied his identity.

_Sarah..._His voice was dark and full of weariness.

_Jareth, _I replied, learning his name as his mind swirled and presented it to me. His consciousness lured me closer, inviting me to submerge myself in the lyric strains of his thought. I resisted the summons with difficulty, though my heart ached to accept it. For the first time I truly understood the fey attraction of the Faerie. They were creatures of magic, unbound by the mortal laws of the land- and as different to humans as I was to an owl.

_Princess, _he sighed, _princess, what has happened to us?_

I don't know, I thought to myself, but he caught the thought easily. I could hide no secrets from him, and he couldn't from me. Except...In the glowing center of his glorious mind there was a wall, he let me know it freely, where he hid from me dark secrets, secrets no mortal could ever glimpse. Insane revels underneath the moon and sinful acts under the stars. With some difficulty, I shook myself free and opened my eyes.

I gasped.

Everything was razor-sharp. I could see all the individual grains in the ceiling, all the minute cracks in the plaster. I could feel the coarse fibers of the sheet I was lying on, and the duvet I lay under felt as scratchy as wool. I could hear my own heart thudding, and the roar of a truck going past outside on the road. I could hear Karen talking to Toby downstairs. I could smell dust and sweat, which made me wrinkle my nose, remembering the last time I changed my sheets.

I could sense Jareth's disappointment and his confusion. I pressed against his mind, well, harder then I was pressed against it anyway.

_Everything is so...dull. How can you bear to see this way? _He asked, confused. From him I gathered the feeling of plain, boring colour, being almost deaf and blind, unable to smell properly, his skin so desensitized he couldn't feel anything.

_What do you mean, dull? This is amazing! _

He gently pushed into my mind, searching. He found a human memory and was appalled by the apparent dullness of my senses.

I slowly sat up, the rough nightgown I was in rubbing my skin unpleasantly. Vaguely I thought of another bed, much larger, and as soft as clouds. Jareth was bleeding into my mind.

He was rooting through my memories, trying to find one of himself. He wanted to know how I saw him. I pushed him away and retaliated with a wild stab in his own head. I was overwhelmed.

_Dark hair, just the hint of red, lightly curled. Innocent green eyes, flecked with the tiniest bits of hazel. Rough skinned, but smooth as silk at the same time. Red lips, run through with tiny cracks, so soft and so tempting. Dressed in a pure white ballgown that was soft under my fingers as I held her close, my hand fitting easily over her hip. I was a head or so taller than her, but it didn't matter, she simply looked up at me, her silky hair woven with sparkling shells. How I wanted to run my fingers through that hair, kiss those lips, see those innocent eyes sparkle with love as I knew they could._

_It amazed me that a youngling like her could be so beautiful. Even with her human flaws, the roughness of her skin, the tiny imperfections that just served to make her more beautiful in my eyes. I could make her perfect. I could, too. I wouldn't change anything, though. She was everything already, and I didn't need or want to change her. I'd had enough of perfect faerie women, I wanted my Sarah, flawed and fertile and defiant and bloody impossible._

I gasped, surfacing from the memory with difficulty. Slightly smugly, Jareth waited for the verdict.

"Jesus Christ," was his only answer.

He thought I was beautiful? One way to give a girl an incredible knock to her self confidence was by giving her a fae to look at her and literally say, _"Oh, you look like a mess, but never mind, I've had enough of the hot ones," _for sure.

Jareth protested against that, he hadn't said that at all. He'd simply said that it would be a nice change to have someone interesting. And she was a woman, not a girl, was she not?

_I'm fifteen, _I snapped.

_...and able to bear children, and beautiful, so why are you not married yet? I would want to cement my claim on you as soon as possible... _

_Hello? _Fifteen? _I don't know about you, but that sort of thing is against the law here._

Jareth marvelled at the oddness of her world. _How strange._

I blinked, delighting in the sensory feast presented to me. I glanced around my room with fresh new eyes and vowed to clean it as soon as possible. I stood, and nearly fell back down again, if Jareth hadn't suddenly gained control of their body and righted them.

Suddenly, I couldn't move. I was trapped and Jareth was moving my body- our body- looking at our fine, delicate hands that certainly weren't what I remembered. They were long and graceful, a pianist's hands, and much paler than before.

_Let me out! _I railed, frightened and unable to move.

I shoved angrily at him, discovering the thread that connected me to my body and using it to yank myself back into the front. He raged around in my mind, his anger frightening in his cold, precise, alien mind, and I felt myself swamped by his power, crackling along our skin.

We fisted our hands, screaming at the sky. Our skin was glowing, our minds fused, and perfect crystals formed and dropped from our fingertips. We glorified in our union, everything that was Jareth and everything that was me together, until we were everything! We were endless, we were powerful, we were immortal and strong and secret. Our long hair crackled.

Magic, magic addiction, magic drug, magic dance, magic love. Power, power and greed, gorgeous power...And us, us, always us, together now! Our souls entwined, our thoughts in harmony, and-

We were apart. I cried out, missing half my heart, soul, mind as he ripped himself from me, his magic snarling and recoiling from me.

_You are pitiful, _He hissed, _how dare you? Child!_

His towering anger and disappointment frightened me. I bravely did my best to ignore him and gasped.

The carpet had turned to perfect crystal. Crystal balls covered the floor, their shards twinkling and shining. And in them was reflected a stranger.

She was tall, taller than I had been, shorter than Jareth, with gorgeous, honey brown hair that reached her waist. Her dual eyes were dark and stared angrily at the shard. One of them was perfect green, and the other was split vertically, one half icy blue and the other dark brown. Her full red lips were pouty and she looked like she belonged and the front cover of the biggest fashion magazine ever made, or strutting down the catwalk, glancing over her shoulder with her tri-coloured smouldering eyes, flicking her beautifully soft hair, soft as kitten's fur. Her ears were pointed and her eyebrows graceful and dark. She was incredibly pale, almost snowy. Her body was long limbed and strong, with hardly any excess fat.

Despite her beauty, she looked...terrible. She was a blend of two races, a fae and a human, and she looked unnatural. The changes weren't that pronounced, it was still definitely me, apart from her eyes and hair, but...

"Oh my god..." I even sounded different.

Jareth sighed. _I miss your eyes, and your hair, _he murmured, _You were perfect before, it hardly needed exaggerating. _He seemed to have gotten over his anger.

_I'm a blend of you and me, Jareth! _I exclaimed to him excitedly, _this is us!_

_Yes, _he whispered in the recesses of my skull, _yes, this is us. Aren't you angry at being changed?_

_No, _I replied, truthfully, _I would have been if I'd got your hair...I mean, it's lovely and everything, but seriously, I don't want to spend three hours getting it to lie straight in the morning._

He laughed.

_And I think it's unfair that I didn't get more of your attributes, _I complained, _I mean, the eyes? _The full import of it struck me in the head, and I groaned. _Oh hell, I've got you in my head forever..._

_Oh yes, precious, _he said smugly, _You chose me, you get me._

"This is going to be so awkward..."


	13. What Does This All Mean?

_You are not serious._

_Yes I am, princess. _He sounded smug and unbearably irritating. Who knew one man could be the cause of all my troubles? It was unbelievable.

_I am not a man. If you were to say I was a man, it would imply that I was human, which I am not. _The incorrigible Goblin King continued, _And also, technically, I am not the Goblin King anymore. You and I are the Goblin Queen._

_Both? _I demanded. _How can we _both _be a Goblin QUEEN? I was pretty sure you were a guy. _I did my best to hide my disgusted recollection of his legwear.

I heard him snarl in frustration, which sounded odd because it was directly in my head. _I am NOT a 'guy'. _The sound was an impression rather than an actual sound.

_I knew it! _I cried, deliberately being dumb. _It makes sense now, secretly you're a woman! _I snickered at the fury that provoked in him. I sensed his mindspace whirling, and suddenly a thicker barrier than usual was thrown up between us.

_I AM NOT A WOMAN! OR A GUY, OR A MAN! I AM A FAERIE! _He screamed. And angry tirade of magic sizzled through us. Our hair stood on end.

_A hermaphrodite? Or a eunuch? It's alright Jareth, I accept people for who they are- _I began in my best therapist lets-talk-about-this-calmly voice. He screeched. I shuddered.

_For the love of Azaena woman! Get it right! A _faerie, _it isn't that hard! _Jareth shouted angrily.

He was beginning to give me a headache, so I decided to capitulate. _Alright, alright, you're a fairy! I get it! _I added a sly thought that I _had _been rather convinced he was a _man, _but apparently, if that was not the case, it was not the case.

Jareth growled grumpily.

It was week two of being in each other's heads, and we hadn't made much progress. We had learned—reluctantly- to cooperate in the hospital, because neither of us with their heightened sensibilities had wanted to spend any more time in a building that 'reeked of sick, death, and decay'.

Since our first conversation, we had been transferred to the madhouse, as I so eloquently had put it. It had taken me a little while to deduce that as long as they thought I was schizophrenic, I wasn't going home. Frequent blood tests revealed that my blood was as pure as a mountain stream, and my brain activity was indeed above normal. My heart beat slower than it had before, and violent streams of magic randomly erupted when I lost control.

Jareth had been helpful with that. Seeing as it was his magic in the first place, he had simply reigned himself in and pushed it to the back of his bit of our head. Sometimes the pressure made her head hurt, having two people in my mind at the same time. Especially when someone was talking to me, and Jareth was too. He also told me that the heartbeat was normal, his heart beat at a much slower rate than any mortal human's.

I had also learned how to talk to him with my thoughts, and not my voice. After another couple of days to make sure there were no inexplicable diseases that could randomly infect anyone off me, they allowed me to go home, on the condition I came into the hospital every week for a check up.

Jareth was very careful not to think of anything that had happened during my run, especially the peach. I was terminally curious about his side of the story, but all Jareth wanted was to get out of my-our- head.

And the dreams. Daydreams were alright, they were mostly whimsical memories drifting across my subconscious eye, but _dreams _were different. We discovered a sort of second reality, where we often found ourselves dumped in the middle of a memory. Last night it had been me reading lines in the park. Jareth had been watching in owl form.

I wanted to know if I could do that too, but Jareth was cautious about using magic, telling me that it was very difficult to control and his may have become unstable.

_I am, technically, not dead. Therefore, I am still ruler. However because I am...indisposed, you are Goblin Regent in my stead. But because my psyche resides in yours, you are not only Goblin Regent but Goblin King as well, but the body we inhabit being female, you would not be Goblin King but Goblin Queen, although I am still Goblin King, you are also Goblin Queen at the same time. Therefore it is a reasonable way of classing it that we together make a queen. _Jareth finally deigned to answer.

_WHAT?_ I questioned, confused. _Say that again in English?_

He sighed. _This body is female, so we're a queen. Because I'm King, so I still rule. _

_Rrright…_I said slowly. _I see. Actually, no, I don't follow. Explain again?_

_I knew no good would come of trying to explain class ruling systems to humans, _Jareth sighed tiredly, _I mean, you _elect _a _government!

_What's wrong with that? _I asked.

_If you have one corrupt king, he is easily assassinated. If you have a group of corrupt people, not so easy. Bloodlines can't be refreshed, marriages and kingdoms cannot be allied. Etc. _Jareth snorted. _Not to mention it makes keeping track of bloodlines difficult._

I didn't bother to tell him I thought that was ridiculous. I sat up, dropping the book I had been half-heartedly reading. Stretching, I considered going downstairs for food.

Since the magical change wrought over me, my family had treated me like some sort of alien. Karen was always giving me sideways weirded out looks and my father was openly jumpy. Both of them refused to go anywhere near me. Toby, to my surprise, had developed a thirsty fascination with me, which was quite embarrassing, since whenever I was in the room he would immediately stop what he was doing and watch me eagerly, as if expecting me to randomly break into song and dance.

I ignored Jareth's mental chuckle as he privately recalled the thirteen hours he'd spent carousing, singing, and dancing with Toby. _Probably an accurate assumption, _I thought sourly.

I was aware of Jareth's mood change to a more intimate light as he remembered singing to me in the ballroom. His mental walls halfheartedly raised.

I flushed. Jareth's mood swings were frequent and unexpected. One moment he could be furious, the next, affectionate. He frequently recalled random memories and moodily retreated into the dark corners of his gleaming mind to peruse dark and shady memories- artifacts of his lethal race that made me cringe when they touched my consciousness. It felt like having raw wool dragged across nerve endings.

I recalled the first day after I had been released from the hospital. Having woken up, my enhanced hearing had picked up Karen and my father arguing on who should take me some tea. They'd both been scared, both been reluctant…

_Lying there, Sarah listened with a sinking heart to her father and Karen downstairs. They didn't know she could hear them as easily as if they were in the room. _

"_Robert!" Karen had called. "Can you take this tea up to Sarah please?"_

_There was a short silence. "I'm doing something, Karen! In a minute!" Her father yelled back._

"_I've got Toby!" Karen argued. "I can't just leave him!"_

See? _Jareth had murmured sadly. _They just don't care.

Shut up, _Sarah snapped. Jareth was being stupid again. Her heart broke as her stepmother and her father began to argue._

"_She scares the hell out of me, Karen!" Robert admitted finally. "There! She doesn't even look like my daughter anymore!"_

"_You think I want to go see her!" Karen screamed. "She just looks at you! With those horrid piercing eyes, like she can see right into your soul!"_

Oh princess, _Jareth sighed. _I know.

_A few tears ran down Sarah's cheeks. They were afraid of her. They didn't want her anymore. She began to sob helplessly._

They're…scared. Of me. My own dad doesn't want to come anywhere near me, _Sarah choked. _

_Jareth comforted her with soft feelings of sympathy, understanding and consolation. _They're only human, princess. You can't blame them.

"_Oh all right!" Robert snapped. "I'll take the damn tea!"_

"_She's _your _daughter, Robert!" Karen reminded him bitchily. _

"_She's a bloody freak," Robert mumbled under his breath after his wife._

A freak. _Sarah whispered. _My dad just called me a freak. _She felt inexplicable anger brew up inside her._

Sarah, _Jareth murmured softly, _Sarah.

_Her father's heavy tread ascending the stairs made Sarah cry only harder. He pushed open the door. "Hey honey," he said softly, no trace of the argument or reluctance in his tone. "How are you?"_

Acting. _Sarah thought bitterly. _

"_I'm fine dad," Sarah heard herself say, "Thanks for the tea."_

No, I'm not fine.

"_It's alright honey." Robert said, and turned to go._

"_Dad?" Sarah realized Jareth was controlling her again. _

Jareth, don't do that. _Sarah snapped._

Princess, he's your father. He just doesn't understand. Put yourself in his place, _Jareth told her firmly, refusing to relinquish control of her body._

"_Yes Sarah?" _

"_I love you."_

_Robert softened a bit, and there was some of the father in his eyes. "I know."_

_He left._

He didn't say _I love you too. _I remembered. I couldn't help my throat from tightening. I blinked back tears.

Jareth's mind bumped against mine- well, pushed a bit more strongly against mine, seeing as we were both so tightly crammed in my mind there wasn't much other space- reminding me he was there. As if I could forget.

I opened her mind, closing our eyes automatically. His soothing, cutting edge presence slid like a knife into me, until we were one, and together.

They sat like that for a little while, peacefully coexisting, until their stomach rumbled again. The powerful faerie inside of her thought immediately of fresh meat, while the more pacific human thought of some toast. A split appeared in their minds, and each found themselves pushing away as if we had been opposite magnets.

I blinked, seizing motor control of the body before Jareth could. I delighted in the sensory quality of my skin once again, and stood.

Unconsciously flowing with grace, I examined myself quickly in the mirror.

The half-breed stared back at me. I shuddered a bit, unnerved as much as ever by the alien changling staring at me in the mirror.

Our honey-brown hair was glossy and as straight as ever, falling in a languid wave to our curvy waist. Our skin was perfectly white, and our teeth straight and as pure as glacier mints. We were an unaccustomed height, shorter than Jareth, taller than me, with a hourglass figure and a plenty ample chest. We were thin, but not as rangy as Jareth had been. But our eyes was what surprised me the most.

One, the right, was green and hazel flecked- my eye. The left was Jareth's, split vertically in half down the middle. The left side was icy piercing blue, the right deep, dark brown, so dark it was almost black.

_We are going to have to get contact lenses, precious, if you ever wish to blend in without being stared at, _My brain-partner thought.

I wondered how he knew about contact lenses. Surely he wasn't that familiar with this world? I doubted they had contact lenses in the Labyrinth.

_You forget, I have witnessed all your memories, _he said, with a slight tinge of embarrassment coloring his thoughts. I winced- mentally, of course.

_Pervert. _I snapped, feeling his thoughts turn to certain memories involving showers. He snickered at her embarrassment. _Precious, it's nothing that I haven't seen before on countless other women._

I recoiled, unaccountably hurt by his words. To just be dismissed in such a manner…I slammed up a few mental walls in my best attempt to hide my shame and embarrassment. I felt tears prick our eyes.

_Oh Sarah, I didn't mean it like that, _he said quickly, his emotions turning from teasing and the slightest darker underhints to worried. _I- you're…_He flashed her a quick succession of feelings, and I couldn't help but gasp a little at the foreign intensity of his emotions.

_Thank you, _I murmured, slightly awed. He seemed embarrassed now, to have revealed how much he had been thinking of me. A slightly awkward moment dragged on.

What did a girl say when she found out that the mystical Goblin King was…well…Jareth coughed discreetly. I teasingly raised my mental blocks.

Another question popped into my mind. _Jareth, who is Shaynn?_

All of his mental walls slammed up, and immediately he became as icy cold as winter. _It is of no consequence. _He snarled.

I privately wondered at the force of his reaction. Obviously Shaynn was a forbidden subject. A lover? Who was she? Questions whirled around my brain, but respecting his privacy as much as I could in our non-existent space, I drew away and politely tried not to think about it.

He was depressed, and his depression was making tears come to our eyes again. I sternly controlled our body, and contemplated going downstairs to assuage the growling in our belly. I listened, our hypersensitive ears picking up Toby sleeping in the room across and her father watching TV with Karen in the living room with ease.

I headed towards the door, the scratchy surface of the wood feeling odd under my soft sensitive palms. _I need gloves, _I thought, with no small amount of irony.

Remembering Jareth's comment from when we had first woken up about the apparent dullness of our senses compared to his normal facilities, I guessed he must have used gloves for exactly that reason.

I opened the door, grimacing at the annoying squeak, and began to glide towards the stairs before I realised I wasn't making enough noise again, and deliberately thudded down the stairs. I thought I'd overdone it, but it was better to err on the side of caution.

I glanced into the living room, where dad and Karen sat, eyes glued on the news. "Hey," I called softly, wincing at my voice. It was feminine, abundantly so, like the rest of our body had turned out to be, but had an unfamiliar British lilt I guessed came from Jareth. Not for the first time, I sincerely regretted the absolute splicing of our bodies- which, I could only thank God, we had turned out female. I had no idea whether that was an accident or not.

_Not, _Jareth interrupted coolly. He still sounded pretty pissed off from my question about Shaynn earlier. Once again, I wondered who was she to have meant so much to him. _The Labyrinth wanted me in your body, for some unfathomable reason. I sensed She was trying to preserve as much of you as possible, which is why you still resemble yourself. However, my being a powerful faerie lord had some consequences- my magic instinctively tried to adapt and alter you to resemble me. The end result- this._

He ignored my not so subtle wondering as he rattled off the reply smoothly, and emotionlessly. His true feelings were still hidden by thick, impenetrable steel walls, which I knew were incredibly tiring to keep up for extended periods of time, but I could see he was still upset. He was hurting, deeply inside.

And that made my throat close with sympathy, although I hated the man- sorry, _faerie. _

_Terranomon peyantíon qe. _Jareth whispered, _The human race is curious._

And then there was his extremely annoying habit of speaking in a weird language I didn't know with infuriating cryptic statements.

I felt Jareth's mood lift at my irritable thoughts. I couldn't help but smile.

"Oh, Sarah, you're up," Karen said pleasantly enough.

"Umm, yeah. I was just hungry…" I trailed off, feeling a little lost.

Karen nodded. Taking that as an end to the awkward conversation, I hurriedly backed out and went in search of food.

I was forever outcast. All because I had chosen to save Jareth's life in place of my own. To some extent, I knew this would happen. And yet I chose him anyway, even if I didn't know anything about him, and it could have been a massive ploy to get back at me.

What did it mean?


	14. As The Pain Sweeps Through

It had to happen sometime. Logically, I knew it. But I really, _really _didn't want to.

The dreaded shower.

Any girl would be nervous on having a stranger peering in on her while she was in the shower. Let alone a mystical Goblin King that had bedded goddesses and caressed queens, kissed empresses and held duchesses...He was keeping a very low profile in the back of my mind, with thick iron walls. Despite that I could feel the general gist of his emotions and wondered if he was feeling lust or embarrassment. Most likely embarrassment.

I swallowed. We were standing in the bathroom, the door locked, a fluffy towel waiting invitingly. I hadn't showered since the uh, incident.

I remembered, cringing, that he had seen all of my memories. Including of me in the shower.

_Please don't look, _I begged him, and he, if possible, drew even further away from my consciousness. Our fingers were trembling as I undressed, trying not to look at ourself.

I stepped into the tub and turned on the shower, yelping as the boiling hot water struck our back. I quickly turned down the heat and sighed gratefully at the drop in temperature.

Jareth's mind had become furtively active as soon as I had stepped into the shower. I very carefully distanced myself from him, having no particular wish to know which lady he was most likely remembering now. He was very sheepish as he cautiously presented an impression of me, of myself when I was normal.

OK. Eww. The ancient immortal's thoughts immediately jump to a fifteen year old girl when in the shower.

He hurriedly protested against the obvious conclusion I'd drawn that he liked little kids. Just to tease him I wondered loudly why he'd started taking children away...

_Not like that! _He gasped, his thoughts flaring with anger. _Never! _He thrust me a quick slew of thoughts I wasn't fast enough to block.

_...Sarah, he whispered, Sarah, Sarah..._

_...So fragile and light in my arms, like glass..._

_...The unbeatable conquest, the unwinnable prize..._

_...Beautiful, innocent mortal, tainted love..._

_...I want her, I want her _now, _no, no, too young..._

I surfaced, and shut him off, almost whimpering in embarrassment. _Stop doing that, _I yelped.

He would have been smirking, and replied slyly, _You want me._

_I don't!_

_Oh yes you do, precious. I can _feel _it. The way you hunger after my touch, beg for the sweep of my eyes, yearn for the sound of my voice..._Jareth purred not so teasingly.

Why were we talking about this in the _SHOWER?_

_I cannot believe you're trying to seduce me and you don't even have a body! _I snapped.

_Its working though, isn't it precious? _

I had to admit he was right, a least a little bit.

_You still don't have a body. _Thank God he didn't have a body. If he did, I would have been _doomed. _

He chuckled. _But I do, precious. And it's completely vulnerable...back at the Castle. You can kiss me all you want..._

_NO! _I snarled. _I am not letting your labyrinth kill me!_

He hissed. _My Labyrinth would not kill you...If it wanted you dead, you would be thrice dead already! Foolish mortal, why are you driven to such incompetence! _

The Goblin King was not human. Not human, not human in the slightest. He was exotic and powerful and ancient and wise and so goddamn alluring it made my head hurt. I wanted so badly to immerse myself in the cold, clear depths of his mind, into the lyric strains of his blood. I wanted to lose myself in the haunting melody of him, let him swallow me, _become _him, now and forever.

I wanted it _so _badly it made me cry, in the shower, the tears running down our smooth, pale cheeks.

The water felt incredible on our hypersensitive skin, and I luxuriated in the feeling of it running down our back, over our legs, our chest, our neck. I flicked back our long, gorgeous hair and rubbed shampoo in it. I rinsed it off and added conditioners to the soapy stuff hanging down our back.

I could feel the steam from the shower dancing against my skin as it rose, insipid wraithlike fingers ghosting across the glass of the bathroom window, fogging it up. I could see the cracks and dirt ingrained in the floor of the bathtub, and feel the roughness under my sensitive feet. The soft carpet looked as coarse as ropes and the veiny stalks of the spider plant above the loo were clearly lined to our eyes. The room stank of mould, faeces, the floral smell of the cleaner Karen used, the starchy clean smell of the towels in the cupboard, and the muggy, hot steam rising from the shower.

He had changed my life. Never again, I realised suddenly, would I be able to return to my average, mortal human teenager existence. How could I go on dates with ordinary boys with a supernatural, jealous Goblin King in my head? How could I become something so mundane as an accountant, or a teacher, or even a writer, with all of these fantastical memories hidden away in our shared consciousness?

I was going to have to go back to the Labyrinth, I realised. The Goblin King had gone. Who was taking care of his subjects? But I had a life here, Karen, Dad, Toby, my friends- I couldn't just leave.

And what would Hoggle say?

That was what scared me the most as I stepped out of the shower, turning the water off as I did so. How could I face the blame and loathing of my best friend? Hoggle wouldn't want to know me now, not with Jareth in my mind.

When had I started calling him by his first name?

He snorted. _I don't know why you're bothering to concern yourself with that scab, _he drawled, _when you can associate with so much more worthy people._

Anger roused within me, and I shot back, _Perhaps those 'worthy people' are stuck up, arrogant, pompous assholes! And Hoggle is not a scab! He is more of a man than you could ever be!_

Jareth purred. _I so very doubt it, my princess. And I'm sure many of those who have known me so much more intimately than you can dream of can testify to that._

I shook my head, disgusted. Why did it always come back to sex with him? I dried ourself with the towel, trying not to wince at the scraping roughness of the material.

_The towels in the Castle feel like clouds, brushing softly against your skin. _He commented slyly. _Come, come, precious, surely you know you will have to return with me soon._

_I can't. I have a life here, _I reminded slightly snappily. I really didn't want to have this conversation just then. I hurried quickly into my room and shut the door behind me, ignoring my fingers catching on the wood.

_Yes, but I have a life there, _He snarled, _My subjects depend on me. I can't just not turn up. We must return- I must return._

_Goblin King, _I paused. I nearly had said please. I wouldn't, couldn't beg to him. He was too prideful, too mocking. He cruelly laughed in my mind. _I know. But I can't go. _

The air in here was stuffy and hot. It seemed almost humid to me. I dropped the towel, avoiding the window, and went to the wardrobe. Here I face my second dilemma- clothes.

Because of the change, I no longer fitted any of my jeans. My skirts were too tight around the hips- and all my bras were too small. My normal tops all showed off my belly and again, were a little tight across the chest. None of my shoes fitted me anymore.

In the end, I ended up sneaking into Karen and Dad's room and nicking a pale blue skirt that she had put in the back of her drawers. As for a bra, I couldn't do anything, but for a top I could at least use one of my baggier, longer T-shirts I had originally kept as a night top.

It amused me that Jareth had not only made me taller, but curvier and more noticeably feminine as well. I would have thought I would have adopted a more masculine appearance, but apparently it wasn't so.

I took one of my bigger waistcoats and tied it tightly across my chest, which, thankfully disguised my lack of a bra. For shoes, I hunted around the bottom of my closet and unearthed an ancient pair of purple flipflops that some relative had given me that were far too big.

It looked a little strange, but at least they fitted. I would have to go shopping, and quickly. I checked the time, and realised with a smile that the shops were probably still open. The town wouldn't do any measuring, but I could do that tomorrow and pick up upper underwear along the way. I put on some sunglasses to hide my eyes, and was surprised to see my hair had dried in perfect shape.

I took Karen's coat, yelled my intentions to Dad, and left.

I basked in the pleasant sunlight, feeling energised by the hot radiation of the sun. I wished I could be barefoot, and wearing something less stifling than the coat, but I didn't really want to be seen wearing something so odd. People were already giving me weird looks for wearing a coat in such hot weather.

I felt incredibly self-conscious as I walked down the street, worrying whether my hips were swaying more than normal, of if I looked like some sort of weirdo. Jareth, thank god, was silent and emotionless in my mind.

I thanked all the gods I knew that we had a Peacocks in town. I hurried inside, and found the shop mostly empty. I walked over to the jeans and picked out a pair that looked roughly my new size, and a plain purple T-shirt. I tried on the jeans first, shimmying out of the skirt.

I admired ourself in the mirror, and Jareth decided to stop grumping and compliment us.

_We cut a good figure, _he admitted. His mind was whirring with thoughts of rich dresses and clothes from his world, which made me pause a little. He seemed unnaturally eager for the whole shopping thing.

_What? _He said a little defensively, _I like shopping._

Well, that explained his random and frequent changes of clothing. Even so, it was difficult to believe the sexy, wild King of the Goblins liked...shopping. I had crazy visions of him sauntering around a mall with his goblins rushing behind him carrying lots of bags. I sniggered.

As incredibly masculine as he had seemed, the Goblin King did have some very feminine tendencies.

He protested immediately at my thought.

_What about the glitter? The dressing up? The _make-up? _And the leggings? The dancing, and the singing? Face it, Goblin King- you are a little...you know. Gay?_

_I am not! _He yelped. _It is perfectly common for a man to do those things!_

I rolled my eyes. _Whatever._

He growled.

The jeans were a size too small, but the T-shirt was perfect. I tried the next size up and was satisfied with the resulting fit.

After determining what size I was, I browsed the shop. I bought two pairs of jeans and two tops and a jumper. One top was just plain purple, short-sleeved. The other was black short-sleeved and on a deal with the purple. The jumper was a nice blue hoodie and also got a pack of undies.

Shoes I could get from the big shopping centre. My flipflops would have to do for now.

The plastic bag looped over my arm, I strolled into _TRIBAL, _or, as we nicknamed it at school, the goth shop.

The shop was dark, and filled with suitably gothic things like faerie ladies crying, or Death with his scythe killing people, black make-up and lacy dresses and corsets.

_I like this shop, _Jareth said. _It is dark. And much of the clothing resembles what my kin wear._

Figures, I thought to myself.

It wasn't clothes I was looking for, though. I went to the back, and sure enough, there was a little stand with contact lenses on it. I scanned them, trying to find some that weren't too gothic.

Red, cats eyes, silver, black...I spun the stand, and nearly cried with relief when I spotted a packet of deep emerald green, normal eyes. The green wasn't too far from my natural colour, and hopefully the people that didn't know me too well wouldn't notice. I was thankful I had such deeply coloured eyes.

Next, into Boots for makeup. I bought some dark hair dye, foundation and concealer. Our skin was almost luminescent white, so I also got some spray tan, even though I personally hated the stuff and thought it made me go orange, orange was better than the pale, never seen the sunlight colour Jareth had given me -us.

Jareth wasn't happy at the idea of hair dye and contacts, but shut up when I pointed out that I already looked enough of a freak as it was, and I didn't need the weird eyes as well.

The journey home was equally as privately humiliating, and even though Jareth sardonically remarked they would have hardly been bothering to look at us, it didn't appease my fears. He of course sighed loudly and lamented why he had to be stuck in the head of an American teenager with obvious confidence insecurities.

I made it home, and called out with a false cheery voice to Dad and Karen.

"Hey Sarah," Karen said awkwardly as she ran into me in the kitchen. I smiled, perhaps a little too widely, and replied, "Hi Karen. I just...bought some stuff."

"Right." She nodded, and hesistated. There was a long, awkward silence.

"I'll just get out of your way, shall I?" I asked brightly, and fled upstairs.

_Ohmygodohmygodohmygod-_

_Sarah, _Jareth said with some amusement, _Calm down,_

_So awkward..._I whimpered to myself, never forgetting the cutting edge of Jareth's razor-sharp mind sliding perfectly into my own, like a knife under the flap of an envelope.

I dropped the bag of clothes on my bed and dumped my wallet on my vanity. There was a slight moment of lag while I wondered what the hell to do next.

_Get dressed, _Jareth told me, _and call your little accomplices._

And for the first time in my life, I decided not to dispute his order.

I was going back to the Underground some day or another...But why did it have to be _right now? _

((()))

Half an hour later, we sat in front of my vanity mirror, twirling a lock of our hair in our fingers. I swallowed nervously. I had procrastinated as long as I could, but eventually, even I couldn't think of any more things to delay calling my friends.

He knew perfectly well that it was all a delay tactic and had mockingly waited for me to hurry up and finish my "little games". Somehow his prolonged silence and private coolness made me even more nervous than usual.

I cleared our throat.

_By Danu, _the Goblin King sighed, _Just get on with it, otherwise I will Summon them here._

And that was the other side of the argument. He wanted to simply be able to summon his subjects to his side as he had often done, he thought asking was disrespectful of his title etc, etc. I immediately told him that was BS, which sparked off an enormous fiery row with some very childish name-calling from both sides.

Eventually I had won with the argument they would be more likely to listen to me.

"Hoggle...Ludo...Sir Didymus...I need you." I said, blushing from the embarrassment of the needy childish words.

"_I need you, all of you, for no reason at all..."_Jareth reminded me deviously, and there was a darker, spicier current to his thoughts than that of just friendship- _And what did you _need _me for, precious?_

I blocked him out, and thought about flipping him off too.

He laughed, but said nothing else.

There was a longish silence. They wouldn't come. I sagged, feeling bereft and lonely. Of course they wouldn't have come. Not with Jareth inside me.

I winced. That came out wrong.

The Goblin King laughed again.

I rolled my eyes, huffing. Jareth's obsession with bed was apparently seeping through to me too, now. Joy-o-joy.

_You chose me, _he reminded me arrogantly, _you get me._

_I was drugged at the time!_

He raised a nonexistent eyebrow._ Really?_

"My Lady?" The scant, quiet whisper shocked me, and I whipped around, coming face to face with Ludo's leathery wrinkled finger.

The orange yeti had been reaching out, to touch our hair, I thought. He let his muscled orange arm drop, staring at me in heartbroken confusion. Sir Didymus stood beside him, his scepter in his hand, looking equally as shattered.

And Hoggle…Hoggle looked destroyed. The dwarf was standing back, at the foot of my bed, with tears streaming down his withered cheeks and his wrinkled, sun-browned hands clutching a rough looking dagger.

Their pain was tangible. They were repulsed by me, repulsed by _us. _

Jareth snarled furiously. The tense anger of his magic crackled through our blood.

"You bastard!" Hoggle shouted, suddenly charging forwards, his wizened legs pumping, dagger raised high.

Didymus leapt, a snarl twisting the fox's face, as he raised the scepter to brain us. "Die! Decease, halfing!"

Ludo thundered menacingly, and smashed us backwards with one fist. We went tumbling backwards and Jareth came closer and asked and I couldn't stop him and he was taking control we were becoming one I was panting he was too fast overwhelming me magic burning fox knight flying

Ludo screaming

Hoggle burning

We were one we wouldn't die we were one we were one forever and always fire burning in our hands magic racing over our fingertips heart pumping jumping high kicking Ludo he stumbled backwards the power in our kick and they were down.

We gasped a little, recovering from the bloody red haze descending over our vision. Those who had dared attack us were weeping at our feet, vanquished. Our fire crystals did not burn us as we flicked them around in our sensitive palms, the fire-magic liked us and welcomed our touch.

The yeti's burnt hair smell stank, offending our susceptible noses. Little flames smoked in his thick orange hair. The beast stared up at us, with something like fear in his eyes. We raised our chin proudly. We deserved fear.

Our hair was crackling with magic, standing on end and framing our face like a lion's mane. Our skin was glowing bright white and our eyes were stormy and dark. Two perfect crystals rested in our palms, flickering, alight with flames. Not even our clothes were torn by the pitiful attack.

The fox knight was where we had kicked him, crumpled against the wall. Even as we watched coldly, he staggered to his feet, blistered from where we had burned him, and limped quickly to his sceptre.

The dwarf was the last to get up. His bushy eyebrows had been burnt off completely by the blast and he was blackened and blistered. The dagger he had carried was a pool of molten metal on the carpet.

Our retaliation had given them only minor burns. It was a warning, not an attack.

"Your Majesty," the fox managed to gasp, and fell at our feet.

"Kiinnng," Ludo rumbled, bowing his great head.

The dwarf's face twisted. "You bastard," he repeated again, quietly, but our superhuman hearing caught his words easily. He too knelt, and murmured an obeisance.

No, this wasn't right, we thought.

It was, we replied.

How could we argue? We were one. No, we were two. We were joined. Two.

Split.

Our personalities diverged, and I quickly grabbed hold of our body before he could. He didn't protest all that much, to my surprise.

"Ludo," I groaned softly, "Didymus, Hoggle. I'm so sorry." I quickly dropped to their level.

Sir Didymus and Hoggle glanced up at me with shock. "Saawaah gonne," Ludo said sadly. "Kiiinnng kiilll Saaawaaah."

_What? _"No," I said quietly, my tears beginning to stream out of my eyes. "No, no, no. I'm alive. I'm talking to you...He's inside of me. He is angry with me. He doesn't like you talking to me, but I do it anyway. I don't let him beat me. I'm me. I'm me and I do what I want to. See? I'm still me, guys."

"Sarah," Hoggle whispered, his face twisting with hate. "Sarah, what have you done?"

_What have you done? _Hoggle's plaintive question echoed in my mind. Stunned, I stared at him. He stared back, challenging me, before dropping his gaze and saying fiercely,

"Sarah is gone. Sarah would have never given in to _that _bastard."

And as I reeled, hurt, my three friends got up, and shimmered away, leaving me alone and betrayed.

_As the pain sweeps through, _he whispered softly, almost lovingly, _Makes no sense for you...Every thrill has gone, wasn't too much fun at all...I'll be there for you, as the world falls down..._

**Yay! Happy days. Hoggle hates Sarah, Sir Didymus hates Sarah, Ludo hates Sarah, but it's OK, because she has Jareth to complain to! Joy and jubilations!**

**I promise, Sareth WILL go back Underground. ONE DAY!**


	15. Back In The Underground

_Chapter 15, Back In the Underground_

I spent the rest of the afternoon crying, wrapped up in my big quilt that my grandmother had made me before she died.

Heaving, incontrollable sobs shook our lithe frame, and I huddled us against the wall, drawing a blanket over our head the way I used to when I was little and believed it kept me safe. The familiar sensation of the dark warmth, the stuffy lack of air, was comforting.

They had abandoned me. Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus. I had chosen to save their king instead of myself, I had _sacrificed _myself so that he might live, knowing full well I would most likely die. I had done this because at the time, I _was _woozy from the Labyrinth's tampering, _No you weren't, precious,_ and because I couldn't bear that guilt for the rest of my life.

But they didn't care for me anymore. My own friends were so disgusted by our appearance they tried to kill us. I felt so alone. Even with Jareth, a soft, comforting presence, almost friendly, seemed cold and faraway. Maybe it was because of his alien nature, the dagger sharp, jagged edges of his mind sliced at my homely warm one like fishhooks.

_I am here, _He was whispering. _I am here. I am here. I am here for you._

He was wishing he had his body, and I could feel the private hurt, the pain, the brokenness, inside of him. He missed his labyrinth. He missed being fit and strong and able. He missed being independent. He missed his goblins. He missed the magic of his homeworld, he even missed the annoying women that clustered around him like clucking hens. He was stranded in an unknown world, with no resources, completely dependent on the one woman who had defeated and shamed him.

In a way, I felt sorry for him. He was furious at my sympathy, he hated being the object of pity. He wanted to go out and destroy Hoggle, Ludo, Didymus, and my mind was so filled with horrific images of torture and pain I wept even harder, drawing close in my blanket-quilt cocoon.

I cried for the Goblin King, faraway from his home and his life, who could not cry tears of his own, I cried for Hoggle and Ludo and Sir Didymus, I cried for being a freak, of being alone, I cried for Karen and Dad having to deal with their scary child-mutation, part Goblin King, part Sarah, but most of all, I cried for myself, selfishly, for myself.

It wasn't fair. I wanted to go back, the way it used to be. Only now could I appreciate all those things I had taken for granted. I felt like a whiny teenager, but I wasn't. I was older than time itself, and yet young as every other girl in the year I went to school in. I was more powerful than any other force alive, yet as weak as a leaf skeleton. I was, we were, a walking oxymoron.

Man-woman, immortal-mortal, powerful-weak, old-young. The only thing that was similar about us was our difference, from anyone else.

_No, _he said suddenly, cutting into my thought. _Not different from anyone else. Sarah, we are one and the same. _

A dawn of realisation came upon me, as I felt him draw closer and welcomed his touch. _Yes, _I hummed, _yes, we are the same. We have each other._

And in that moment, we had never loved each other as deeply ever before. Not the love of a mate, but the love of an intimate mental companion, one who knows your deepest wishes and desires, a tolerance so vast and forgiving they were almost infinitely attuned to one another's moods and thoughts.

We smiled, showing our pointy, pearl white teeth. We'd go back, we decided. We couldn't let them get away. No, we'd go back, and we'd show everyone that we weren't to be messed with, that we were one, and one is strongest.

And with that thought, we drifted off into sleep.

_I felt the blackness all around me, the stifling darkness as we whirled through each other's minds. Suddenly, I could see a pinprick of light ahead of me. I struggled towards it, and the scene reached up to envelop me._

_Jareth and I were standing in a dark, sumptuous bedroom, with wine red drapes with black trimmings and only a few candles casting eerie, flickering light. The bedroom was otherworldly gothic, with ornate swirling carved wooden bedposts. The bed commanded attention, it was huge, king-size, with dark red coverlets the colour of blood, and the crisp white sheets looked like snow, while the black curtains looked like night itself next to them. _

_I glanced up, and saw Jareth beside me. He was frowning darkly. He obviously knew this room. _

_That night he was dressed in a long, crimson coat that reached his knees, buttoned closed. Visible was his legs, clad in black leather, and his boots, shined. His hair was as messed as ever, but now he wore black streaks, and the makeup around his eyes was dark. The look was aggressive, but compellingly attractive and dangerously seductive. Maybe it was also exaggerated by the fact he looked about ten years younger. _

_I looked down at myself and blinked in shock. I was wearing a rather gothic black dress, complete with a corset that shoved up my chest and showed it off. It was backless, and sleeveless, but thin black lace covered the exposed skin. The beautiful skirt fell in full waves to the floor. I was wearing lace-up boots, to my relief. I could walk in them. Part of my hair was done up in a deep red sash, the colour of blood, the rest was left loose. Dark make-up, similar to Jareth's, outlined my eyes. I peered into a mirror to examine myself._

_I found I rather liked it. I turned to him, and asked him an unspoken question. He shook his head, and turned away from me. With quick strides, his flickering, phantasmagorical body was outlined briefly in the doorway. I followed him, my ghostly footsteps making no contact with the carpet. _

_It was a bathroom. The floor was shiny black marble, in fact, everything was black marble. There were deep red towels that looked gorgeously soft on the rack. Two people, a young man and a young woman, stood in front of the mirror. I recognized the young man instantly, it was Jareth, barely older than a teenager. His hair was in shockwaves to his jaw, little spikes of gold. His eyes had less of the weight and power and his face was unlined, and fresh and exuberant with youth. His eyes gleamed and his stance was slightly off-balanced, he was obviously slightly tipsy. _

_He wore an identical outfit to the older Jareth, but he had sponged off his make-up with a wet tissue. He was helping the young woman take off hers._

_She was a beautiful thing, all high, proud cheekbones and aristrocratic face. Her hair was a long, rippling mane of gold, and her eyes were mismatched blue and green. It surprised me, her eye-colour. She looked very similar to Jareth himself, I thought._

_She was wearing a black dress eerily similar to my own. She leaned into Jareth's protective arms with the comfort and warmth of someone used to it. Oddly, I felt a pang of jealousy. _

"_I don't like that man who was sniffing around you tonight," the younger Jareth told the woman. Suddenly, the older Jareth gripped my hand, almost crushing it in his grip. I blinked back tears and gasped, looking up at him. His face was contorted with pain, and he was shaking with sobs. Tears were running unchecked down his pale cheeks. _

_I pressed close to him, wound my arms around his neck, and rested my forehead against his. He avoided me, but then, as if he had no longer the will, all but collapsed in my arms. He wrapped his arms around her waist and squeezed tightly. I swallowed, winded. I couldn't breathe, but I wouldn't have dared to tell him to back off._

_From behind me, I heard the woman replying lightly, "Jareth, he was nothing. And anyway, you don't like any man that comes near me. What are you going to do, make me join your bachelor club?"_

"_Shaynn, I worry about you."_

Shaynn! _Eager, I listened. Finally, I would learn more about who this mysterious woman who haunted Jareth like a poltergeist. In my mind, I ran through ideas. A lover? Almost certain. A wife? Possible. Just a random lady? Almost guaranteed not._

_She turned in his arms. The older Jareth bit out a whimper and pressed his face into my neck. I bore the rough treatment with fortitude, only turning a little so I could see what was happening._

_With a teasing smirk that seemed eerily similar to the one Jareth usually had worn, Shaynn said with a raised eyebrow, "And what of you? Should I not be there to fend off the ladies with a big stick?"_

_He snorted. "I'd thank you if you tried. Honestly, that Mizumi! She is almost several thousand years older than me! And we all know you can't teach old dogs new tricks."_

_Shaynn sniggered. "The things you could learn from her." She teased._

_Jareth shuddered. "You make me physically sick, Shaynn. She's old enough to be my mother."_

"_I bet that wouldn't stop you," Shaynn betted, "Face it, every woman alive is going to follow you until you've become a fully fledged man. And then they'll all want to marry you."_

"_Hah! Coming from you! How many men stalk you now?"_

"_Oh, I found several outside our window yesterday," she grinned, "It's rather flattering, actually. I'm making a list."  
Jareth rolled his eyes. "That's is so much like you, Shaynn."_

"_Don't deny it, you've been counting." Shaynn chuckled._

_Jareth grinned. "Nine-hundred and thirty-two." He smirked. "I'm going to break the record."_

"_Oh yeah?" She challenged. "Nine-hundred and fourty-four."_

_The scene began to tip, whirl, slide out of focus. I sighed, it was no use trying to hold it back._

_The memory shifted, and then whirled._

_It settled in a garden. Flowers waved softly in the breeze. The moon was large and round, shining benevolently down on the pair sitting by the starstruck pool._

_A man, she instantly recognized Jareth, older this time, with a woman, ageless and beautiful in her magic and power as he. The moon gilded them, turning his hair to gold and hers to onyx, and their pale skin to the finest marble. They sat together with the uncomfortable silence of strangers, yet the way she had rested her hand on his knee was as familiar as a lover. _

_They stared out over a large pond, that reflected the moon like a large pearly eye. Water-flowers drifted, bright spots of shadowy colour against the shining whiteness of the reflected moon, and the abyss black of the cold water below it. Willows lined the pool, their crying branches tumbled into the water as if they had lost the will to hold their slender arms upright. _

_She turned to him, and in a cloying voice of silk murmured his name. He replied with hers in a low sound to quiet and flat for me to make out the words._

_The older Jareth snorted in disgust, and I heard him muttering, "Bloody woman never lets me alone."_

"_So, your sister is gone." She stated, a proud glee in her voice._

_He yanked away from her and snarled a short, "Yes."_

"_Do you want to see her again?"_

_He turned to her, his eyes wide and round as an owl's with amazement and hope. I was taken aback by the expressiveness of his large, round, dark eyes, the gentleness that seemed shrouded over his youthful frame. "You can do that?"_

"_Yes," she purred, "I can grant your dreams, if you grant mine."_

_He drew back from her as if disgusted. "I cannot give you that." He told her coldly, turning away. For a moment I thought I saw a flash of anger in her cool eyes, but then it settled. "Then you will never see your sister again," she told him callously, and got up, as if to leave._

"_Bitch," the older Jareth muttered. _

_I raised an eyebrow at him. "Who is she?"_

_He gave me a rebellious look. "A conniving, evil bitch that thinks only for herself and her own needs."_

_I pretended to wince. "Close to home, then?"_

_The older Jareth scowled at me. "Watch the memory," was all he said._

_I turned back to the pair. The woman had walked a little way away, and the younger Jareth was still seated, staring at the pool, his eyes an agony of indecision. "Don't do it," I heard the older one plead to him quietly, as if he could hear him. _

_I was curious to know what was to happen. Eagerly, I watched._

"_Stop!" The younger Jareth finally cried. His shoulders sagged._

_The woman paused, and turned around with an expectant, hungry glint in her eye. _

"_I will give you what you want," he whispered, looking for all the world as if he were about to throw up, "But you will help me save my sister."_

"_I will honour our bargain," she replied evasively, her dark eyes glittering. The younger Jareth didn't seem to see the evasion._

_He swallowed, and said, "Very well."_

_Her face stretched into a sickly smirk. "Come then," she crooned, "Come with me, little prince."_

_He stood robotically, and walked stiffly after her, the picture of depression and disgust. Suddenly, I felt a jerk from Jareth's mind as he shut off the memory. _

We were cast into wakefulness. I opened our eyes blearily.

_Why did you wake us? _I asked him.

His voice was soft as he said, _You would not have wished to see what happened next. _

_What did happen next? _I questioned.

He was silent, and refused to answer.

I accepted his silence glumly. He did have a right to withhold his own memories. Rare was it that we ended up in one of my memories, instead of his. I had so few compared to him. Our rest was fitful and peppered with jolts of wakefulness as Jareth rescued us from a private or dark memory, which was disconcertingly frequent.

I snuggled deep into my warm nest. I felt protected and safe. If only I could feel like this all the time. He chuckled softly inside my head, and I felt a gentle wisp of thought brush against the raw nerves of our joint. Our mouth turned up in a smile with my unspoken pleasure. It was the mental equivalent of brushing a lock of hair behind my ear, a revealingly tender and oddly private gesture.

I yielded to him, and experienced his mind pressing closer, like a heavy weight tipped with steely, precise daggers that slid into the sweet, pure flesh of my mind, and the silky waves of drowsy love and a single, friendly desire to be one with me.

Accepting, I opened myself fully, except the tiny nub of memories that I kept concealed from him at all times, things about myself that no one could ever know. Like a loving wave, he reached up and lapped around me, drowning me in his awing presence.

I quickly found myself being suffocated, but I did not care, it was enough to be in union with him for this one perfect moment. But he was pushing deeper still, wanting more, and as I closed our eyes, we became one.

Our minds were united, seemless, until we were one. One mind, one heart. And from this came a new person, a combination of both of us.

I opened my eyes, stroking my pale skin. I loved the softness in my hands. I remembered how on summer nights, I had used to play the piano, and relax in front of the TV, my nimble hands dancing over the keys.

I stood up, gently peeling myself away from my warm cocoon in the quilt, and crossed to the window. I unlatched it easily with the skill of much practise, and pushed it up. I smiled at the fresh, pure air flowing in through the window. I adored fresh air. But I didn't like this air. It reeked of human pollutions. I remembered the air in the world I used to live in, pure and gentle and heady with magic. I wished I could be there. Briefly, I frowned. Why not? What was to stop me? My friends couldn't. I was their ruler.

I closed my eyes and centred myself. I activated the pulsing well deep inside of myself and felt the tingle of responding magic dance up my arms, a familiar and loved caress. I imagined a crystal of transportation, taking only a few seconds to think of everything. I had been doing this for centuries after all.

A perfect crystal rested in my palm. I marvelled at it. How had I not noticed how wonderful it was? I pictured my throne room strongly, and saw the image reflected in the crystal. Nodding to myself, I threw the crystal to the floor. It smashed, and I was away!

I remembered to keep my mind firmly on my goal, but I was fascinated by the swirling colours and dancing lights as I tugged myself through time-space continuum.

My trainers struck the stone with a hardly a sound. I opened my eyes, and saw my subjects clustered around me. I smiled.

I was back.

**Just a clearing note, this last bit is not Jareth taking over Sarah, it is Jareth and Sarah fusing into one being. Sareth, if you will.**


End file.
